by Scott Johnson | RGS & AWS Forest Wildlife Coordinator – Minnesota & NW Wisconsin
RGS & AWS staff and partners in Minnesota organized a two-day field tour event in August 2022 to discuss forestry and wildlife habitat programs and practices on multiple ownerships in north-central Minnesota. I organized the first tour of Chippewa National Forest (CNF) lands projects, along with other RGS staff, including Jon Steigerwaldt, Sam Snyder and Chad Bloom. Partners including the CNF and the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) also contributed to the tour. The second tour day was conducted with Aitkin County Land Department, ABC and Pineridge Grouse Camp (PRGC) and included county and private lands projects.
In the Winter 2021 issue of Covers magazine, RGS & AWS Regional Director Jon Steigerwaldt introduced the RGS & AWS shared forest and habitat Stewardship Agreement and expanding project plans with the CNF in Minnesota. Steigerwaldt described the Stewardship Program and its unique ability to generate revenue from commercial timber harvesting and apply it to forest habitat improvement work. He shared RGS & AWS’s progress preparing for the first Stewardship timber harvest with additional forest habitat improvement work with the CNF’s Blackduck Ranger District.
During the August field tour, RGS & AWS partners including CNF, ABC, local contractors, forest industry representatives, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), University of Minnesota researchers, RGS & AWS member leadership and other conservationists views completed work at one site and additional new work plans at another. These partners from many backgrounds were excited to present their involvement in support of these RGS & AWS CNF Stewardship projects, hear more about the RGS & AWS Stewardship Program agreements and see progress on the ground.
The two large project areas toured (Tower Lake hunter walking trail area near Blackduck and Johnson Lake hunter walking trail area near Grand Rapids) include aspen forest harvesting, hunter walking trail maintenance and improvements and forest opening improvements. The aspen harvests themselves are regeneration harvests, where timber is produced for use in a mill and a new stand of aspen sprouts is started. Both projects incorporate commercial timber harvesting, which generates revenue and also grows patches of dense, young aspens across the landscape. The revenue is then used to complete the hunter walking trail and other habitat improvements.
Harvesting at the Tower Lake site was completed by Greg Cook Logging of Bigfork, Minnesota, in late winter 2022, and the tour group observed new aspen sprouts across the site (Figures 1 & 2). Combined with another CNF stewardship site (“Morph Meadows”), these harvests started 83 acres of aspen regeneration, produced about 2,286 cubic feet or about 230 log loads of pulpwood and generated about $85,000 to be applied to future habitat service work.
Together, these management units will account for about 450 acres of improved upland hunting opportunities with improved habitat conditions for ruffed grouse, American woodcock and a variety of other wildlife. The University of Minnesota’s Natural Resources Research Institute presented their breeding bird monitoring work, which is being conducted on this site in conjunction with the regeneration harvests. Baseline surveys of breeding bird use through field surveys and autonomous audio recording devices were conducted in years just prior to timber harvesting and will be compared to post-harvest use and as harvest sites regenerate. Tour participants are excited to learn about the short- and long-term impacts to breeding birds.
At the Johnson Lake site, the group toured patches of mature aspen identified for regeneration harvesting (Figure 3) to maintain a mosaic of aspen stand ages across the landscape – ideal for ruffed grouse habitat and healthy forests. This project site will regenerate about 78 acres of aspen (see Figure 4), produce an estimated 2,228 cubic feet of pulpwood and generate approximately $125,000 for additional habitat service work. In September 2022, RGS & AWS awarded the 78-acre Johnson Lake timber sale to Sappi North America for their Cloquet, Minnesota, pulp and paper mill. Sappi plans to complete their harvesting work over the next two years.
After viewing the harvest areas at each site, the group surveyed hunter walking trail networks, which meander through both management areas as seen on the Stewardship map (Figure 4). Participants discussed the history of the hunter walking trails in the area, past and present maintenance, future plans and how these trails are a great example of multiple use, maintaining access for both efficient timber harvesting and recreation.
Contract mowing of these CNF hunter walking trails had been completed through RGS & AWS CNF stewardship agreements in 2021 and will be performed again in fall 2022. Another benefit of CNF forest stewardship is RGS & AWS’s ability to bring extra funding and capacity to the habitat service work identified in the agreements. On the tour day, RGS & AWS grant consultant Gary Drotts explained how a grant awarded to RGS & AWS through the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The grant can be used to further improve the Johnson Lake and other CNF hunter walking trail networks by installing new gates, signage, maps and parking facilities.
Shortly after the tour day, Grand Rapids Chapter President Marty Niewind completed mowing of additional CNF hunter walking trails as a volunteer effort in support of this stewardship agreement. As discussed at the tour and with Marty, additional conservation volunteerism will be a great way to further engage members and enhance our conservation impacts within this stewardship program and beyond.
Tour participants visited a few small permanent forest openings, spaced throughout the management areas. Discussions included the history of these openings, their importance and plans to maintain or enhance the herbaceous plants through fire, mowing or other disturbance, as well as native seed plantings. Enhancing these sites will benefit populations of pollinators and insects (which also have great value for ruffed grouse broods), spring deer browsing and woodcock singing grounds, and will provide great hunting and wildlife watching opportunities.
In one forest opening (Figure 6), Minnesota DNR and U.S. Forest Service staff described the desired condition of these openings in the otherwise forested landscape where flowering plants dominate with just a few, small scattered shrubs and few oaks. RGS & AWS stewardship plans with CNF include prescribed burning of several wildlife openings, followed by seeding in 2023 to maintain and enhance these characteristics.
The following day in nearby Aitkin County near Remer, the group toured forestry and forest wildlife projects on Aitkin County property and private lands. The Aitkin County Land Department presented their successful forest management technique using small group selection harvests in mixed hardwoods. As the group walked through six-year-old harvests of about a half-acre in size, they observed healthy paper birches, red and sugar maples, basswood, red and bur oaks, black ash and elm and aspen saplings, as well as a diverse understory adjoining the mature mixed hardwood parent stand. These small groups mimic historic forest disturbances such as storm blowdowns.
Harvests in these patches can be an economically efficient means of timber harvesting and provide preferred forest regeneration outcomes, including perpetuating both desirable hardwood species and some early successional species such as aspens. Monitoring of this forestry method has shown an increase in wildlife use and ecological benefit. In particular, wildlife species associated with both older interior forest conditions (such as scarlet tanagers) and species with early successional forest needs (such as golden-winged warblers) continue to use the forest.
The tour days ended at Pineridge Grouse Camp (PRGC) near Remer, where ABC and PRGC conducted a tour of private land forest habitat work. Over the past several years, ABC and PRGC – with funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service – have maintained a mosaic of forest and brushland ages with an eye on golden-winged warbler habitat needs, but with great benefit to a variety of forest wildlife. The group walked through a stand of scattered oaks mixed with shrubs, restored by mimicking past fire influences using a combination of individual tree harvesting and brush mowing. The group then saw commercial aspen regeneration harvests showing ongoing habitat for golden-wing warblers as well as ruffed grouse and American woodcock.
RGS membership and staff will continue to engage in these discussions with each other and with partners to unite conservationists to actively promote forest and wildlife stewardship. RGS members can further their contributions by finding forest and habitat needs and opportunities in their home areas. At the end of the tours, partners broadly agreed that interdisciplinary professional and conservation member-leaders should continue to showcase forestry and forest habitat activities. The engagement and conversation, allowing sharing of knowledge throughout this group, was exceptionally valuable. When conservationists unite to promote forest stewardship, great things can be achieved. But this requires private and public land managers, land users and experts from disciplines to cooperate and collaborate.
