Local timber company is partner in KW habitat management

 
By JERRY NUNN

Habitat management is the most essential aspect of the Kirtland’s Warbler recovery effort and today, a regiment of timber harvest, burning and seeding or replanting provides the bird with its all-important habitat.

According to Joe Gamola, a biologist technician for the U.S. Forest Service in Mio, the burn techniques are used rarely, the Warbler does benefit from burns.

“They’re used to maintain natural grassland and prairie,” said Gamola. “The original grasslands were planted to red pine by the Civilian Conservation Corps and we try to reclaim some of that.”

Harvesting of timber always takes place before an area is burned and newer harvest practices leave little behind, Gamola said. With a ready market for chipped wood, what Gamola referred to as red slash, the live branches left behind to dry, are now used for building and paper products.

The nearly 160,000 acres of Jack pine forest under control of the state and federal governments is harvested on a 50-year rotational basis, according to Gamola. With around 2500 acres harvested annually, the recovery team seeks a goal of 40,000 acres available to the Warbler in any given year.

The contract sale of standing timber as a means to rejuvenate warbler habitat has been a benefit to local industry.

T.R. Timber Inc., a trucking and logging firm located in West Branch, was the largest purchaser of state timber sales in 2003. The company may be the epitome of local benefits derived from the Kirtland‘s Warbler.

“Last year we cleared 320 acres for the feds and around 500 acres for the state,” said Tammy Grezeszak, office manager for T.R. Timber. That represents more than a quarter of the total 3,000 acres that T.R. Timber clears in a year.

Tom Rosebrugh, owner, began the company in 1968 as a trucking firm. Working closely with the logging industry, Rosebrugh eventually bought his own equipment and entered into the logging industry himself. Today, Rosebrugh bids contracts and handles finance while his sons play major roles: Tony is the company forester and Todd manages trucking. The company works statewide, but tries to remain in the northeast part of the state.

“We have 22 employees, including office staff, truckers and equipment operators. We have 13 semis and 18 pieces of off road harvesting equipment,” said Grezeszak, adding the state and federal contracts have been good to the company. Grezeszak could not give a total value figure, but estimated the cost of each piece of equipment alone to average $180,000, with one new harvester costing over $280,000.

While the company is a perfect example of the partnership between government and industry, it is not alone in the benefits. Several local companies haul logs or chip wood, including Weyerhaeuser, Georgia-Pacific, Packaging Corporation of America and others.

“We haul to Mead Paper in Escanaba and to the energy plants in McBain and Lincoln also,” Grezeszak said. “We have a very good relationship with both the state and the feds. We work very closely with them and it does take some coordination. They are very good about that.”

When T.R. Timber purchases a sale, it already has an end user – either one of the companies mentioned above, or a local sawmill. Those companies have specific needs of species, length and whether they need round logs or chipped wood. As a result, sometimes a job site must be abandoned for a time to cut elsewhere, but state and federal contracts often get attention first.

“The state contracts may last from one to four years and we cut to state specs. When the feds sell a contract that sale must be cut within one year,” said Grezeszak, who understands how critical the agencies’ work is.

“We’re up there in the Warbler area from November to April, but we hit it hard from January on. We have to be out of there by April 15 so they can plant when the soil still has some moisture. That’s very sandy soil up there,” said Grezeszak.

The advantages of the cutting practices followed in the recovery effort go well beyond the financial. Many species of birds, plants and animals derive direct benefits from the clearings, according to Gamola, who had just returned from a presentation on the Kirtland’s warbler and habitat management.

“The big ones, the ones people know about are the Snowshoe Hare, Deer and Wild Turkey, but there is also the Sharp-Tailed Grouse, which we can’t even hunt down here, and the Upland Sand Plover,” said Gamola. The Plover is a threatened grassland species that would probably not be found in this area if it were not for the warbler habitat.

“The Black Backed Woodpecker is another threatened species we see in burned areas,” Gamola said. “We see Night Hawks and of course there are a lot of songbirds that occupy the warbler habitat.”

Grezeszak agreed with Gamola and understands the importance of woodland maintenance as well as its benefits to wildlife. She said when they are done in an area it is ready to start its lifecycle over again, with certain species of trees or individual specimens left standing, along with many dead snags.

In fact, if you mention clear cutting to her, you’re apt to get an ear full.

“I can’t stand that term. Clear cutting sounds like mutilation, like it’s being annihilated and that’s not what it is at all,” Grezeszak said. “The other day I was driving past a cutting we did up in Damon and right there on a snag was this beautiful Bald Eagle.”

“Its all about regeneration and habitat, the whole thing is a process. In just a few years, you’ll drive by there and it will be a beautiful forest,” said Grezeszak, “Until then, there are all kinds of animals. It’s full of life.”