ELKINS, W.Va. — “This has been the slowest deer season I can remember,” said a clerk at a convenience store near Mill Creek in Randolph County. I had called there after hearing the number of deer at many of the mountain check stations seemed to be down.
DNR numbers eventually would bare out fewer deer were killed in the state’s high country during the 2013 season. The blame from laymen was as all over the map. Callers to Ram Trucks West Virginia outdoors blasted the DNR’s management objectives. Some criticized liberalized antlerless seasons and others laid blame toward coyotes or other predators. Poachers also took heat for their impact.
But what is often overlooked is deer numbers are only the most conspicuous evidence of a much larger problem. Numerous critters which depend on early regenerated forest have struggled. The problem hasn’t been noticed by the general public as much because it has been a very gradual change. The change is in the forest itself.
During the 1970’s and early 80’s West Virginia’s forest lands were alive with activity. Chainsaws were echoing off every hill and hollow as the timber market soared. Other parts of the state were silently regenerating after years of logging in the early to mid 20th century. Farms were active. Farmers were clearing pastures and rotating land for crops.
Yet in 2014, logs are leaving West Virginia at a trickle. Farmers are retiring and their once well maintained lands are now mature stands of timber. Trees well past their prime for harvest are growing ever taller in the Monongahela National Forest. Invasive species and new diseases are creeping into the West Virginia ecosystem. Environmental activism has taken an extreme foothold and the multi-use intended for the one Million federal acre Monongahela National Forest is rapidly pushing logging off the grid as one of those activities acceptable on the “…land of many uses” as the Forest Service signs proclaim.
“Forests are dynamic places. They change,” said Terry Jones, staff forester for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. “What we see a lot of now in the higher elevations is the older growth and you have less game populations. Game populations like disturbance and in the older growth you don’t see those edges and openings like you used to.”
Jones said over time, land use policies at the National Forest changed and the allowable timber harvest has been reduced dramatically.
“When you saw large numbers of deer and grouse, you had brushy clear cuts and other types of cutting and that’s what they like to hide in. Plus you had different stages of browse for them to chew on,” said Jones. “That’s dwindling and as that happens and the old growth comes your carrying capacity drops.”
The DNR is moving in a direction it hopes will reverse the habitat trend. Jones and his staff carefully craft timber sales for state lands, especially in Wildlife Management Areas. Jones is in charge of overseeing the cuts and managing them for improvement of wildlife habitat.
“I don’t have the constraints where I worked before in making the top dollar,” he said. “I have to pay for what I’m doing and sell the timber at appraised value, but we often have loggers build savanna’s, clearings, or maybe an access road. We’re always incorporating some extra practice where if you were looking for top dollar you wouldn’t do that.”
The process started small with a few operations around the state. During recent years the program has ramped up and the DNR presently has nine sites where various cuts are happening. Other sites are in the developing stages. One of the largest operations is in Wayne County on the East Lynn Wildlife Management areas. Mother Nature started the East Lynn project with a tornado two years ago. Jones shepherded a salvage timber sale on the property.
“That’s probably our biggest landscape level wildlife habitat yield,” he said. “When this area gets landscape level, we’re talking thousands of acres, is when you get real results with an increase in game animals.”
Jones said it doesn’t take long to see the results and the bounce back.
“Elk River WMA is one where we had a timber sale a couple of years ago and everybody was worried because it was where they had always hunted, but now they’re killing trophy bucks out of there,” Jones said. “We put in a series of cut back borders, ponds, a little bit of everything. There are 14 different types of cuts in the 110 acres and we’re mixing it up. The more mix you get, the better the results.”
Jones varies what is allowed in the operations. Some will be complete clear cuts, others will be a thinning operations, in some of the areas timber operators leave seed trees behind. The plans also call for the cuts to be varied, but also separated by untouched wood lots.
The state timber sales aren’t as difficult to navigate, but also come with their share of red tape loggers must clear. Jones keeps an eye on them and balances the benefits with best logging practices. He said due to environmental protection of endangered species, they are limited to cutting 1,300 acres annually.
“We work under a programmatic bat plan because of the Indiana bat restrictions,” he said. “It’s very difficult. There are 15 steps and some side steps to get one of these through. If you start spreading it around and do it every year, you make up for a lack of that work in the past, but you’re right if it was up to me I’d do more than that.”
Jones said they’ve been able to get around some of the restrictions by cutting poplar stands to create habitat which is not considered bat habitat.
Although it’s a small scale, Jones said there’s tremendous support within the agency for more cutting activity. The support comes amid results, which he hopes the public will start to notice as the cuts become more widespread.
“Deer increase, grouse increase, songbirds increase, there are a lot of things happening,” Jones said.