forestry

An estimated 4,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area recently celebrated the return of millions of migrating birds as part of the 16^th annual Flyway Festival held on Mare Island in Vallejo, Calif. California national forests act as a vital habitat link in the Pacific Flyway, a major north-south route of travel for birds migrating every year from Alaska to Patagonia.

The birds travel some or all of this distance both in the spring and in the fall, following food sources heading to breeding grounds overwintering sites. Many of the bird’s native habitats such as oak woodlands, riparian areas and mixed conifer forests are found in the golden state’s national forests.

A new baby bald eagle will soon begin his flight lessons on the San Bernardino National Forest as the first recorded chick to be successfully nested in recent times near Big Bear Lake.

The chick was first spotted Feb. 21 by Forest Service wildlife biologist Marc Stamer while leading a school field trip.  “I was shocked to look through the spotting scope and see a bald eagle chick sitting up in the nest,” said Stamer. “The students, teachers and parents were as excited to see a baby eagle as I was!  It was a first for all of us!”

Around 1,500 Jasper and Putnam County elementary students in Georgia got their hands dirty planting trees while meeting Olympic athletes at the Kids4Trees program sponsored by the Forest Service. The event was the first of 35 planned across the nation for 2012.

Bryan Jacobs, an inspiring two-time Olympic weightlifter, was among three Olympians who visited with students. After learning what it takes to help both trees and young spirits thrive, the students planted trees at their schools and potted their own small trees to take home.

Imagine men mounted on horses, armed with rifles and sidearms, patrolling millions of acres of public land. These men were typical U.S. Forest Service rangers over a century ago. This is how the Forest Service first approached forest management.

Forest Service historian Dr. Lincoln Bramwell recently shared the history of the Forest Service to the agency’s Class of 2011 Presidential Management Fellows, a federal government leadership development program.

Back when Arizona was designated a U.S. territory, scientists had already been exploring its vast landscapes which start from nearly sea level and climb to over 12,000 feet. They were paying particular attention to Arizona’s diverse vegetation and climate.

In 1889, biologist C. Hart Merriam traversed northern Arizona and found six of the seven world life zones he would later describe by latitude and elevation. The existence of such varied life zones across a short distance, and often with just a few hundred feet of elevation change, fascinated scientists. One particular life zone, the extensive stands of ponderosa pine growing at higher elevations from west of Flagstaff, AZ, eastward into New Mexico was particularly interesting to scientists and foresters.

Despite the many benefits which come from clean wind energy, one of the most majestic birds of prey, the eagle, is itself falling prey to the blades of wind-energy facilities. For reasons still not clear to scientists, eagles are vulnerable to collisions with wind turbines, and in some areas such collisions can be a major source of the bird’s mortality.

For this reason a research team led by of U.S. Forest Service scientist Teryl Grubb successfully captured and instrumented the first of six adult bald eagles with GPS devices during a recent winter trapping effort in Michigan.

In one of the first of its kind studies in the South, a research social scientist with the Forest Service Southern Research Station recently examined Latino access to local public lands in Hall County, Ga.

Census-track-based information from studies like this can help municipal and county planners develop strategies to address public land access by minority communities.

Researcher Cassandra Johnson Gaither  found that since 1990, Latinos have migrated or immigrated to nontraditional areas of the South—basically states other than Florida—at unprecedented rates.  The Latino populations in some southern states have increased by 300 to 400 percent.  This growth places demands on these areas from a pure numbers standpoint, but the associated cultural shift can’t be ignored.

The Forest Service has added an iPhone/iPad application called Invasive Plants in Southern Forests: Identification and Management to its strategy of reducing nonnative invasive plants in the South.

The free app will allow more people to get involved in eradicating foreign plants, which, along with nonnative animals and pathogens, harm water supplies.  They also harm native plants, wildlife, livestock and property in both rural and urban areas at a cost of about $138 billion annually.

Bhutan is a small mountainous kingdom nestled in the Himalayas. Some people know it as the country that measures gross national happiness in addition to its gross domestic product. Others may have heard about its innovative, eco-friendly approach to tourism or of its Dragon King’s royal wedding in 2011.

Chuck Leavell may be known as the legendary keyboardist for the Rolling Stones and the Allman Brothers Band, but he’s just as proud of being a champion for tree stewardship and sustainable forest management.   His conservation ethic, his forest advocacy and his personal stewardship of Charlane Plantation near Macon, Ga., were recognized Feb. 27 when the U.S. Forest Service proclaimed him an honorary forest ranger.