by: Fred Payne
September 1978
Wildlife is a product of the land and reflects its true condition. As one biologist put it, "Let me suggest to you... that it is not possible to find a simpler measurement of good environment than whether fish and wildlife can thrive in it". There is no better symptom of poor environment than the absence of fish and wildlife.
In Nova Scotia there are over 140 species of common birds and at least 40 species of mammals, each requiring a slightly different habitat for survival. For example,
- in search of deer, one might go to a hardwood ridge or brushland;
- to find ruffed grouse, check out an abandoned farm, or in winter, go to a poplar or birch stand;
- for pheasants, follow a hedgerow or explore a thicket of wild roses in a ravine; around agricultural land;
- for woodcock, search through an alder thicket or young poplar or hardwood stand;
- to find a snowshoe hare, walk through a thinly stocked stand of young or pole size spruce with brushy patches, or a nearby alder thicket;
- to see muskrat, mink, otter or waterfowl, look around marshes and swamps;
- to catch a trout, find a shaded pool with clean, cool water, or a spring hole;
- for songbirds, look around you: orioles and vireos in the tops of hardwood trees; woodpeckers around dead or dying trees; cedar waxwings and robins, in berry bushes and trees; sparrows among grasses and low shrubs.
Put all these places together and you have a diverse environment and a wide variety of wildlife. Remove one habitat type and you remove the wildlife depending on that type:
- remove the dead trees and snags, no woodpeckers;
- remove shade from along the stream edge, no trout;
- remove hardwoods, no deer;
- remove alders, no woodcock;
- remove poplars and birches, no ruffed grouse.
This is the habitat principle governing the presence and abundance of each wildlife species. Wildlife thrives in varied combinations of grasses and herbs, shrubs, seedlings, saplings, pole trees, mature trees, dead trees, brush piles, thickets, meadows, swamps, hardwood and softwood trees.
Harvesting the Forest
Considering this habitat principle, it is obvious that forest cutting practices have a tremendous impact on wildlife. How a forest is harvested sets the stage for the establishment of the next forest and the next generation of forest wildlife.
Fortunately, the variety of trees and age classes in a forest can be manipulated by regulating the number and the type of trees removed in the harvest cut. Conditions can be adjusted to favour the seeding in and the growth of a desired plant species or to deter less desirable species.
As a general rule if you are interested in wildlife favour hardwood trees as much as softwood trees - not because hardwoods necessarily produce more wildlife, but because our forests are already 70 per cent softwoods. As hardwoods decline, species such as deer, ruff ed grouse and woodcock, which depend on hardwoods will decline as well. Remember also that hardwoods improve forest soils rather than degrade them as some softwoods do.
No single cutting practice favours all wildlife species. In fact, a variety of cutting methods is probably better for wildlife than any one cutting scheme. But again, if you are interested in wildlife, you should try to select individual trees or patches of trees rather than cutting everything over large areas.
Clearcutting and Wildlife
Clearcutting removes all trees in an area at one time, not just those which are suitable for pulp or logs. Unless seedlings are already established under the stand, clearcutting favors the so-called pioneer species such as poplar, white and grey birch, and red maple. Because they are adapted to growing in direct sunlight and cannot tolerate shade. These are the first to grow in newly opened areas.
Balsam fir will also seed into a clearcut because its seedlings can withstand the drying effects of the sun and can compete with raspberries, hardwood suckers, and pin cherry. On the other hand, shade-tolerant trees like sugar maple, beech, hemlock and red spruce will not establish well in direct sunlight. Yellow birch and oak will stand some shade.
Natural regeneration on clearcuts tends to be all the same age and size. In such an even-aged forest, food and cover are abundant for different wildlife species at different stages of forest growth (but not at all growth stages). Small clearcuts have more value to wildlife than large clearcuts because they offer more edge per acre cleared. Moreover, large areas of one tree species and one age are too uniform to support more than a very few animal species.
Clearcutting in northeastern spruce-fir forests usually favours the less desirable fast-growing trees for pulp mills and fibre board mills.
The advantage of clearcutting are that:
- logging operations are concentrated on the smallest possible area relative to the volume of timber removed;
- it is simple and easy to practice;
- during the regeneration phase small clearcuts produce large amounts of ground vegetation suitable for wildlife food.
Disadvantages:
- temporarily destroys the forest cover (except slash, which is good for woodpeckers for the first 3 years);
- drastically alters the temperature of the soil;
- desirable regeneration may not occur;
- tendency to restock with even-aged stands of one species invites insect attacks;
- soil may deteriorate;
- danger of fire is temporarily increased;
- clearcutting along streams raises water temperatures.
Remember, unless you are clearing insect-damaged wood or blowdown, don't clearcut more than an acre or two at a time in one place. Never clearcut along a stream, except around beaver flowages where you may want to intentionally establish poplar and other hardwood foods.
Selection Cutting and Wildlife
Selection cutting is the planned removal of individual trees or small groups of trees within a forest stand. This should not be confused with "high grading" where only the best trees are taken. Instead, poor quality growing stock as well as sound mature trees are taken in a plan to upgrade the quality of the forest stand while balancing growth against harvest.
Cutting single trees here and there favors the more shade-tolerant trees like red spruce, sugar maple and hemlock because the shade is not broken. group selection creates a larger hole in the forest canopy and favors intermediate species such as balsam fir, yellow birch, oak and ash. These young trees provide food and cover for various species of wildlife. An uneven-aged stand is particularly favourable to birds. Selection cutting provides a continuing supply of food and cover for wildlife throughout the life of the forest.
On the small woodlot selection cutting is the best method for producing wood for the softwood and hardwood lumber industries, veneer and specialties.
Other advantages include:
- maintenance of crown closure, which restricts windthrow, shelters smaller trees, and affords a high degree of environmental protection for the site; trees, and provides a high degree of
- the mixture of ages in the stand reduced the danger of insect and fungi outbreaks;
- reduction of fire hazard;
- shade along streams is maintained because the entire forest is a green belt.
Selection cutting is also the most aesthetically pleasing, as well as the best method for conservation of wildlife. Tree regeneration is normally easy to secure and the method represents the best means of securing a sustained annual yield on very small or farm woodlots.
Disadvantages include:
- intensive skilled management is required to prevent degradation of the remaining stand;
- genetically superior trees are likely to be removed;
- management and skidding costs are likely to be higher;
- road construction and maintenance must be more extensive.
In managing your woodlot for wildlife and wood, remember that there are reasons why the kinds of trees you have are there! They may owe their origin to fire or a hurricane, to past cutting practices, or to natural succession or some other natural or man-caused influence. One thing that's reasonable to assume is that of the seed sources available, the species present were the best suited to the site when the stand became established.
If you want more wildlife, manage by stands , (that is; by groups of trees in distinguishable units - e.g., a pine stand), not by arbitrary geometric blocks. And try to break up the stand by using different cutting practices and different timing of cuts. Had such an approach to management been taken early in our history the impact of spruce budworm attack would have been minimal. If taken now, the chances of severe reoccurrence will be greatly reduced.
Remember also, that when wood is removed from the land, the nutrients contained in that wood are also removed.
Odd Places and Wildlife
Marshes, swamps and other wet areas are invaluable assets because of the variety and abundance of wild things which live in them, including muskrat, mink, otter, beaver, snipe and waterfowl. Marshes and swamps fairly teem with life. They also help control floods and erosion, purify and filter water, maintain the water table, retard the loss of nutrients, and produce food for fish. Protest your marsh- a clean ditch produces nothing.
Old Hedgerows and odd patches of mixed shrubs and bushes provide protective cover for many small birds and mammals. Honour those old dead trees, for they will serve as nesting sites for woodpeckers, chickadees or as dens for raccoons. Cherish fruit-producing trees and shrubs such as cherries, apples, elderberries, juneberry (shadbush) oaks and beech. All provide abundant wildlife foods. Alder thickets should be protected because alders build soil, harbour insects and worms for young birds (including woodcock and grouse), provide cooling shade for trout streams, and serve as protective cover and food for beaver, snowshoe hare and other small wildlife forms. If you own an alder patch, keep it - it's a wildlife haven!
If you follow these simple suggestions you will increase the variety and abundance of wildlife in your woodlot. You also may find your trees are less subject to insect and fungi attacks, that they are less likely to catch fire, that wind doesn't blow down so many, that you don't have to worry about regeneration or tree planting.
In short, by creating a diversified stable forest ecosystem you may find you spend less and earn more over a longer period of time than you do by trying to farm trees, by planting, spraying, fertilizing and using all the other highly mechanized and increasingly expensive methods to produce a crop. You just may be able to recover more from your forest land in game, fur and fish than you do from trees. Certainly you'll derive much more enjoyment and satisfaction from managing your woodlot for a diversity of interests - not just short-term profit.
Is such an approach impractical?
Not if you have motives other than immediate profit.
Not if you value the priceless heritage of mammals, wild birds and fish
Not if you value, diversity, stability and long-term quality of your woodlot
Not if it pleases you or your children to deepen your understanding of nature and your sense of belonging within the larger web of life.
IMAGE 1: Nova Scotia trout and salmon par get a sustainable portion of their food from insects falling into the water from surrounding vegetation.
IMAGE 2: Selectiom cutting encourages the regeneration of desirable species while providing an all-age forest good for a variety of wildlife.
IMAGE 3: Withrod is a good wildlife food plant. Shrubs should be encouraged in the woodlot.
