A Taste of Sustainable Forestry

by Kelly Eggers, a member of MHF’s Natural Heritage Committee, with credit to Brian Naylor 

   So you’d like to have your bush lot cut for cash, but kids like to play back there, the neighbours moved to this corner of the world to see wildlife, and you’re not so fond of the idea of it looking like a hurricane went through once the loggers are done with it.  Think this is a win or lose situation?  Think again.  You can choose to manage your forest sustainably, keeping all those things that you value about it, and still be able to harvest.  You can have your deer, hawks, walking trails with nice views, babbling brook trout streams, seasonal ponds for frogs to breed, firewood, and sawlogs.  In short, you can have your cake, and eat it too. 

  There is a lot to consider when it comes to forestry, but managing for wildlife is a good start, and it’s something everyone in Muskoka can appreciate.  There is some wildlife habitat that needs to be left alone, like wetlands, or the seasonal pools where frogs and salamanders breed (where water may only be in the spring or early summer - called vernal pools).  For these types of habitat, a wide strip of forest (a buffer) needs to be left around them, but there are six things that are part of forest wildlife habitat that can be considered on a tree-by-tree basis.  These are stick nests, cavities, downed woody debris, mast, conifer cover, and supercanopy trees. 

  Large birds like eagles, osprey, and red-shouldered hawks build nest platforms out of twigs and sticks, which they may use year after year.  Once they’re done with them, other birds that need stick nests but can’t make their own will use them, like great horned or long-eared owls.  Any tree that has a stick nest should be kept.

  Trees with big holes are called cavity trees.  About 50 species of birds and mammals use holes in trees for feeding, nesting, resting, denning, or hibernating.  Standing dead trees usually have cavities but these are sometimes a safety hazard and must come down.  If trees that are declining in health, but are still structurally sound can be kept for cavity trees, all those animals and birds will benefit.  Keeping six good size cavity trees per hectare is a good guideline.

  Downed woody debris is the trees, or pieces of trees, that fall and stay on the forest floor.  Logs, branches, or stumps on the forest floor are used by about 40% of forest wildlife. They are used  for shelter from predators, a place for fishers to make dens, places where bears make dens for hibernation, moist areas for salamanders, or places for ruffed grouse to do their mating displays.  When rotten trees, or bad pieces of trees, are cut that can’t be sold or used as firewood, consider leaving them where they’ve been felled.

  Mast is the edible fruits or nuts of plants.  Soft mast is berries, like raspberries and blueberries, and hard mast is things like acorns and beech nuts.  Red oak is the most important mast tree in Central Ontario, and other important trees are beech, basswood, and black cherry.  A variety of wildlife need mast — birds, chipmunks, and black bears that especially need acorns and beech nuts in the fall to gain weight so that they can make it through winter hibernation.  Leave a minimum of eight good mast trees per hectare (larger diameter trees with big healthy crowns). 

  Conifer cover is especially important to deer.  Have you ever noticed that in the winter it seems warmer under the evergreens?  Snow gets trapped on the branches and insulates the area below.  Deer will stay in conifer cover for warmth in the winter, so if there are clumps of hemlocks in your hardwood forest, leaving them for the deer is a good idea.  Other animals, like marten and fisher, also like having clumps of conifers; owls like to roost in them during the day; and some songbirds like to spend the day in hardwood forests but will only nest in conifers.

  The really, really tall trees that stick up above the rest of the trees are called supercanopy trees.  These trees provide great vantage points for hawks, eagles, osprey and turkey vultures.  They are usually white pines, and are also used by black bears as refuge trees.  When bears feel threatened, up they go, and mother bears especially like to send cubs up these trees to keep them safe.  Retaining one supercanopy tree for every 4 hectares is good practice, especially those that are near eagle or osprey nests.

  Before getting a chainsaw anywhere near the trees, look out for these six wildlife values, or consider hiring a treemarker to go through your bush lot.  Trained treemarkers know the many values of a forest, and will mark the trees using different colours of paint.  Trees with little blue W’s stay – these are the trees with wildlife values.  Orange-marked trees get the axe.  Treemarkers can mark according to a prescription, written specifically for a particular bush lot, which tells them how many trees can be taken out.  They also know to mark trees of a variety of sizes and quality, so the structure of the forest is maintained or improved, and will grow better for the next harvest. 

  There are a lot of things to consider when you think about logging your land.  Just don’t forget that it’s not impossible to have your cake and it eat it