Committee talks forest recreation
Taylor County is looking to the future and ways to improve the county forest for recreational users and hunters as well as loggers.
At the December 6 forestry and recreation committee meeting, committee members heard from DNR wildlife biologist Spencer O’Brien and from Ashley Strabel who works under a partnership with the DNR and private groups promoting ruffed grouse and woodcock habitat.
They presented on a variety of ways the county could manage the forest to increase diversity in the age of areas of the forest and encourage wildlife.
County forest administrator Luke Williams had raised the idea of developing additional wildlife clearings in the forest. These are intentionally cleared areas that
See COMMITTEE on page 3 are planted in grass species and kept periodically mowed to create clearings.
O’Brien supported the idea taking it a step further and saying the county should allow a brushy transition between the clearing areas and the forest. He noted that many species of animals thrive in the transition areas. He said the ideal would be to keep them a half acre to up to five acres in size and with irregular borders rather than straight lines. “Look at having a stair-step approach rather than a carpet to the wall,” he said.
The biggest maintenance for these is to keep them open once they have been established and not letting them get brushed over. O’Brien noted the creation of edge habitat helps many species in the forests.
O’Brien said the county forests present an opportunity to make wide improvements for wildlife habitats.
Strabel said harvest practices can be used to improve wildlife as well as improving forest productivity. She specifically talked about managing aspen groves as a way to promote wildlife.
Typically, aspen groves are clear cut and then allowed to regrow until they are mature enough to be harvested again. This creates stands of trees that are all the same age making them more susceptible to outside factors. Strabel instead proposed that aspen be harvested by doing only certain portions of a stand in any given year. Over time, this would result in a forest with diverse tree ages with the different maturity levels of the stands having different habitat opportunities for the animal species there.
The suggestions from O’Brien and Strabel were wellreceived by committee members. “I want to see the forest used by the general public,” said committee member Rollie Thums. “That is why we are here, to better utilize that resource.”
In other business committee members:
• Approved the closeout of timber sales 715 from Smola. The sale came in at 27% under run for value from projections prior to harvest. “Utilization was good. There is nothing left in the woods,” Wiliams said, saying that he feels it was overestimated.
• Approved a 15-month extension for Wilson Forest Products for a 130-acre winter sale that the logger had be awarded in fall 2021. This is the first extension on the sale. Due to poor conditions last year there was little opportunity to log in winter-only sales areas. The extension will give the logger this winter and all of next winter to get the work completed. The county waived the charge for the extension.
• Approved awarding bids on five timber sales. The bids came in at $208,643.50 which was well above the minimum bid of $124,880 that had been set for the sale. Sale 6-24 was awarded to Wiitala-Vozka Logging with a bid of $46,645, $15,000 ahead of the second place bidder Smola Enterprises who bid $30,241.10. There were four bidders for this tract.
Tract 7-24 was awarded to Czarneski Forest Products with a bid of $15,087.50, which was about $5,000 more than the second place bidder from Smola Enterprises at $10,400. For tract 8-24 Smola Enterprises was the high bidder at $105,720 which was above the $88,178.20 bid by Gumz Logging for the work.Twin Forest Products was the high bidder on tract 11-24 with a bid of $42,191, which was above Smola Enterprises bid of $33,969. There were four bidders for this tract.
Williams said there were no bidders for the back ash harvests that had been put out on bid. The county has the option to negotiate a direct sale of this timber to a logger. “They are hesitant to cut an ash swamp right now,” Williams said.
• Tabled making a decision on having gps monitoring on the forestry department vehicles. Department staff said they had no qualms about having the vehicles monitored but raised questions about the cost of the monitoring and how it would be monitored. Committee member Gary Beadles said he was uncomfortable with the monitoring without having questions answered.
