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Kentucky Heartwood

We need forests we can get lost in; trees that make us gape; streams we can drink from. 
​Wild places sustain and define us; ​we, in turn, must protect them.

Forest Service proposes loosening protections for endangered Indiana bats

3/19/2018

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Picture
Indiana bat colony in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Rockcastle county
The Daniel Boone National Forest has proposed to amend the forest's 2004 management plan with respect to the federally endangered Indiana bat. The Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) was first listed as an endangered species in 1967, and has been in decline ever since. Since 2006, the spread of the disease White Nose Syndrome (WNS) has caused remaining populations of Indiana bats (as well as other species of bats) to crash. 

Some of the Forest Service's proposed changes simply align terms and criteria with those currently in use by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. However, the Forest Service is also proposing to loosen several protective standards that limit timber harvest near maternity colonies of both Indiana bats and northern long-eared bats (Myotis septentrionalis). Northern long-eared bats are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act on account of catastrophic declines from WNS.

One of the reasons provided by the Forest Service of the need for change is that logging restrictions near maternity colonies during the summer roosting season mean that more logging has to take place during the wetter winter months. But over last decade, several aquatic species have been listed as threatened or endangered, meaning that sedimentation of streams from logging has to be taken more seriously. For example, the Forest Service just proposed around 3,000 acres of intensive logging on steep slopes in the Redbird District in designated Critical Habitat for the Kentucky Arrow Darter, which was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2015. The Redbird District includes most of the remaining habitat for this species. We'll post more about the South Redbird Project in the near future.

The bottom line is that the only changes the Forest Service should be making with respect to Indiana and northern long-eared bats are those that are demonstrably protective and support their populations. These important, imperiled species cannot afford the loss of a single maternity colony - especially to facilitate logging on our public lands.

For now, the Forest Service is accepting comments on their proposal until Monday, March 26th. The agency will likely prepare an Environmental Assessment sometime in the near future.

Links to project documents can be found on our website here, and the Daniel Boone National Forest website here.

Here is a link to the page on the Daniel Boone National Forest website where the public can comment on this proposal. Comments are due by 3/26/2018.

Comments can be emailed to: comments-southern-daniel-boone@fs.fed.us

Or sent by postal mail to:

Dan Olsen, Forest Supervisor
Daniel Boone National Forest
1700 Bypass Road
Winchester, Kentucky 40391

Please state "Plan Amendment" in the subject line when providing electronic comments, or on the envelope when replying by mail. 

Here is where you can read comments that have been submitted by the public.



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Kentucky Heartwood Challenges Major Timber Project on Kentucky’s Daniel Boone National Forest

9/15/2017

 

Rare Species and Restoration Take Back Seat to Logging Plans

Kentucky Heartwood has filed a formal administrative objection (“pre-decisional objection”) challenging the approval of the Greenwood Vegetation Management Project on the Daniel Boone National Forest in McCreary and Pulaski counties. This project would be the largest timber project on the Daniel Boone in 13 years, and would allow commercial timber harvests on over 2,500 acres of public lands, along with a wide range of other management actions including the construction of 139 log landings, planting of shortleaf pine, herbicide use, and over 10,600 acres of prescribed fire.

The objection focuses on the Forest Service’s unwillingness to focus restoration activities in areas most impacted by the severe southern pine beetle outbreak that lasted from 1999 to 2001. The objection also addresses the agency’s failure to survey for many rare, declining, and threatened species, as well as their lack of adequate consideration in the Environmental Assessment for how management could harm or benefit these species.

“Instead of focusing restoration efforts where they’re most needed, the Forest Service is going where the timber is. This is a case of genuine restoration needs getting sidelined by the Forest Service’s continued emphasis on logging,” said Jim Scheff, Kentucky Heartwood’s Director.

National forest lands in the Greenwood project area are home to a wide range of rare and declining species, as well as unusual, rare natural communities including native grassland remnants, sandstone glades, and Appalachian seeps. Fire suppression and past logging have degraded many of these habitats, and appropriate management could help toward the recovery of some species.
Both Kentucky Heartwood and the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission repeatedly requested that the Forest Service survey and manage for state-listed threatened and endangered species, including rare wildflowers like Quill flameflower, Eastern wood lily, Appalachian sandwort, and Eastern silvery aster. The Forest Service asserts that they are not required to survey or manage for these species – a contention that Kentucky Heartwood has challenged in the objection.

“There are real opportunities to get this right. But the Forest Service needs to take a step back and re-evaluate their plans,” said Scheff.

The project also includes 222 acres of broadcast spraying of herbicides in wildlife openings, a matter of particular concern to some area residents.

“There are always trade-offs in land management. But we don’t think it’s acceptable to log thousands of acres of our public lands in the name of restoration, all the while ignoring many of the species and sites most in need of help,” Scheff added.

Kentucky Heartwood was joined in their objection by the Center for Biological Diversity and area residents Elizabeth and Michael Loiacono.
 
 Kentucky Heartwood was founded in 1992, and seeks to protect and restore the integrity, stability, and beauty of Kentucky’s native forests and biotic communities through research, education, advocacy, and community engagement.
 Read the entirety of Kentucky Heartwood's formal administrative objection here:
greenwood_predecisional_objection_and_attachments.pdf
File Size: 497 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Invasive plants overtake natives

7/21/2009

 

http://www.kentucky.com/latest_news/story/866538.html
Invasive plants overtake natives

By Andy Mead
amead@herald-leader.com
RED RIVER GORGE — Miscanthus sinensis is one of the worst offenders.

It takes advantage of our nourishing climate, and repays the kindness by smothering the locals.

The ornamental grass, which also goes by the alias Chinese silverplume, was planted at Natural Bridge State Resort Park in the 1930s, but it soon escaped and now is at large in the state.

It was one of the priority targets listed by the Forest Service last week when the agency asked for input on a proposed war on weeds in the Daniel Boone National Forest.

The 700,000-acre forest "is facing an ecological crisis," as native species are crowded out by the foreigners, the agency said.

The Forest Service plan calls for treating as many as 1,400 acres a year by various means, but actual numbers will depend on how much money is appropriated each year for the work. The proposal contains no cost estimates.

There have been efforts to combat invasive exotic plants in Lexington parks, at the Arboretum on Alumni Drive and in state parks and nature preserves. But the effort at Daniel Boone, which covers portions of 21 counties, has the potential to be the largest attempt so far to take back acreage for native species or at least stop the spread of exotics.

"Every acre lost to these invaders is a loss not only to our native plant species' diversity, but also displaces wildlife food sources and habitats," the Forest Service said.

More than 70 species are causing problems, the Forest Service said. Most of the offending weeds came here from Asia or Europe. They spread rapidly because they left behind whatever diseases or insects kept them in check back home.

The best-known invasive is kudzu. It can be found in the Boone, but it's not among the worst invaders.

The agency proposes to get rid of weeds by pulling, mowing, burning or spraying them with herbicides.

It issued a report asking for comments from the public. If the proposal is approved, work could begin next June.

The Forest Service says it wants to concentrate on areas, such as wetlands and cliff lines, where sensitive native species are found and invasives can do the most damage.

In some cases, the Forest Service says, it wants to work with landowners to remove invasives on private land that is adjacent to public land in the fragmented forest.

The two wilderness areas in the Daniel Boone — Clifty and Beaver Creek — are not included in the proposal, but the public is invited to give opinions on whether they should be.

Joyce Bender, president of the Kentucky Exotic Pest Plant Council, welcomed the move against invasives.

"I know they've had to go through a lot of processes to get to this point, so this is good," she said.

The Forest Service proposal uses what the agency calls "adaptive management, which allows it to react more quickly to new infestations. Bender said that is important, because "if they didn't give themselves the option to switch gears, they might not be as successful."

Bender also is a branch manager for the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission. She said she could not speak for that agency about the Forest Service proposal because she had not yet consulted with colleagues.

Jim Scheff, the director for the environmental group Kentucky Heartwood, said he was glad to see the Forest Service dealing with the invasives problem. But he said he is concerned about an over-reliance on herbicides to control the weeds.

"A site-specific, case-specific argument can be made for herbicides, but they should be a last resort," Scheff said.

He also said that when the Forest Service approves a logging road or a gas or oil well on the forest, it creates openings where invasive plants can move in.

"While they're looking at spending a lot of money and spraying a lot of herbicides to combat invasives, they're also engaging in practices that spread them," he said.

As part of a federal lawsuit that Heartwood is pursuing against the Forest Service, it argues that the agency hasn't considered the overall impacts of using herbicides. Scheff said he would like to see such an analysis as part of the invasive-plants effort.

David Taylor, the forest botanist for the Daniel Boone, said he expects comments from the public about herbicides.

"We know that is controversial for many people, but prepared properly, it is very effective," he said.

Taylor also acknowledged that logging and other resource extractions efforts can be an invitation to exotics.

"Our national direction is that we will do certain kinds of management," he said. "So we're trying to do a better job of mitigating after we do something."

Exotics can also come in when new trails are built, he said, or when a wind- or ice-storm knocks down trees.

"Many of these species like disturbances," Taylor said. "They follow disturbances."

To explain how ubiquitous exotics are in the national forest, Taylor walked along the Pinch-em-Tight trail head off Tunnel Ridge Road. Here's some of what he found in just a few yards:

■ On the edge of the parking lot was a large Elaeagnus umbellata, or autumn olive, that has small berries that are eaten and spread by birds. The autumn olive was often planted on reclaimed strip-mine land because it grows quickly, holds the soil and attracts wildlife. Now it's a nuisance.

"A lot of these plants that we consider weeds were brought in with good intentions," Taylor said.

Pointing to one of the many berries that were turning from green to red, he added that "because birds like them, every one of these is a potential new plant somewhere on this ridge."

■ Growing alongside the road was Microstegium vimineum, or Japanese stiltgrass.

It was first noticed 90 years ago near Knoxville, Tenn., and now is found through most of the eastern United States. It is so widespread that the Forest Service proposes to just keep it from spreading, not to reduce its numbers.

It isn't doing any real harm just growing along Tunnel Ridge Road, Taylor said. But seeds are washing into the woods and over cliffs, and the plant is moving into rock shelters that are a favorite spot of a native called white-haired goldenrod. That species is so rare that it is found only in the gorge and nowhere else in the world.

■ Rosa multiflora, or multiflora rose, was found. It was introduced to this country as a natural fence that also held soil.

"It made some pretty tough fences that kept cattle in place," Taylor said.

Now it's making thorny barriers in places it shouldn't be.

■ Miscanthus sinensis, the Chinese silverplume mentioned earlier, is an attractive plant that can be seen waving in the wind along the Mountain Parkway.

But with seeds that spread on the wind, it has overtaken thousands of acres, mostly in Eastern Kentucky. Many people plant it in their yards all over the state.

Besides pushing out native plants, the dried blades of grass from previous growing seasons pose a severe fire hazard, Taylor said. A small leaf-litter fire will hit a patch of the grass and become such an inferno that firefighters can only pull back and watch, he said.

"It's pretty and you can understand why people would want to plant it," Taylor said of the plant. "But it produces a lot of windblown seeds and if it gets a little ground, it goes."

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  • Home
  • News and Events
    • Stu Butler Memorial Award
    • Newsletters
    • ANNUAL REPORT 2022
    • Forest Blog
    • Music Festival 2023 >
      • YOUTH MUSIC COMPETITION SIGN UP
      • Music Festival Vendor Page
      • Music Festival Sponsor Page
      • Music Fest Poster!
    • Past Events >
      • Stonecoal hike
      • Hemlock volunteer days
      • Red Hickory and Herbal Medicine Hike
      • Red Hickory Hike April '22
      • Music Festival 2021 - Extra #4
      • Bat Meter Deployment Field Trip 2021
      • Virtual Membership Meeting 2021
      • The Three R's with Davis Mounger
  • Forest Watch
    • FOIA
    • Jellico >
      • ORG COMMENTS
    • South Redbird Project
    • Blackwater (Cave Run Lake)
    • Pine Creek Forest Restoration Project
    • Greenwood
    • Pisgah Bay Project
    • Climax & Little Egypt >
      • Crooked Creek Photos 2011
      • Crooked Creek Photos 2010
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      • Rock Creek Hike, November 2009
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