Woodlands Committee Meeting Minutes
Attendees: Jerry Uhrig, Linda Spencer-Green, Martha
Dwyer-Bergman, Blair Schleicher-
The minutes from the previous meeting were approved.
Jerry said that he would be out of town for the next eleven
days.
Reports
Book: Swampwalker's Journal,
A Wetlands Year by David M. Carroll
This book was recommended by ENSP biologists at the
workshop on vernal pools. To quote the Boston
Globe, it "puts a face, or faces, on the creatures we are destroying,
something much more effective than a blanket cry to 'save the wetlands.'"
The book was written by a naturalist who has spent the past 50 years studying
wetlands. He devotes a chapter to each of seven wetland types: vernal pool,
marsh, swamp, shrub swamp, pond, floodplain, and bogs and fens. Mr. Carroll
introduces all the wondrous denizens of the vernal pools: fairy shrimp, whose
eggs can remain viable through a waterless decade or more; mole salamanders,
whose longevity can exceed that of most dogs (20-25 years); wood frogs, whose
skin becomes increasingly toxic as they mature; broad-winged hawks, who have
learned to peel the skin off their prey before eating it; backswimmers, members
of one of several aquatic insect families that can inflict painful, often long-lasting,
fiery stings. These insects are the best reason not to wade barefoot and
bare-legged into vernal pools.
Mr. Carroll also points out that once development starts in
the vicinity of a vernal pool, it becomes very difficult to provide sufficient
buffer space around the pool. Mole salamanders may need up to 500 feet.
Conversation with Mike van Clef of The Nature Conservancy
(Linda,
Note: This report should
have been in the March meeting minutes but it was overlooked.
I spoke with Mike Van
Clef of the Nature Conservancy. He said that Lenny Wolgast
is retired
wildlife management expert and would probably only be helpful insofar as
designing hunts, getting hunters, etc.
Regarding forest
recovery, Mike said he favors as natural a recovery as possible rather than
running the risk of introducing new genotypes. Badly browsed forests need to
have deer numbers close to 0 to make a comeback. Even deer numbers close to 3
per square mile may be too many. Twenty deer per square mile is too many. This
is the situation in
Regarding earthworms,
Mike believes that the Asiatic earthworms (the big ones) may change the
nutrient composition of the soil but this is minimal considering the problem
associated with the deer overbrowse. He suggested definitely leaving this issue
until we have a handle on the major problems.
Wet Borough
There are concerns about
a wet borough lot between
NRCS
(Natural Resource Conservation Service) Visit (Jerry)
Tim Dunn
and Jody Peligan visited the Borough on April 9 and
walked through the areas cited in our grant application for invasives species
control. Tim Dunn will write a report with recommendations on management of our
woodlands. We spent three hours walking
Richard Wilcox and Halsey Frederick Parks.
Near the entrance to the multi-use trail back of the beach at Birchwood
was the first of many patches of garlic mustard. The hill back of the beach
seemed to have very few herbaceous plants of any kind. But further out Ogden
Trail, closer to the boundary between Borough parkland and
Several
other observations were made during the tour with NRCS. (1) We might want to
consider fencing an acre or two in
Vernal pool field study
Jerry and Phil visited
vernal pools accompanied by ENSP biologists. It was a very useful first-hand
look at life in vernal pools at
Herptile Survey Workshop
Jerry attended an ENSP
workshop on surveying for herptiles. His area of
responsibility in the ENSP survey includes most of the Borough, actually half of
the Boonton USGS quad and a small portion of the adjacent quad to the east. The
workshop offered a good opportunity to practice herptile
identification skills. Jerry missed a very obvious feature of a Northern Red
Salamander and misidentified it. It showed that it is quite possible to miss
the obvious, which in this case was black spots on the
back of a red salamander. Martha asked about the water snakes commonly found in
our lakes, especially Birchwood and Crystal. They are Northern Water Snakes.
These non-venomous snakes can be found all over the state. They prefer quiet
waters. Darker specimens are sometimes confused with the venomous Cottonmouth,
but the latter are not found in
Deer Report
Final count on the deer
culling was 72 total, 56 does, 83 fetuses. The most
productive site was at the chimney area of
Shade Tree
Report
There is
ivy on the trees on the street. The
Shade Tree Commission doesn’t address this issue. Dead trees in the small lots-Shade Tree not
interested in addressing this issue. The
question is what is the healthy level of dead trees in the woods? Perhaps we should have John Linsey come and evaluate the ratio of the living trees to the
dead trees.
Dead Tree
Removal
Martha
mentioned that she knows someone who is in the lumber business. He might be interested in removing some of
the dead trees. She will get more
information about this individual.
Publicity
Linda and
Martha will make a poster for the upcoming Garden Club Annual Plants sale to
inform them about invasive plants and the work of the Woodlands Committee.
Woodlands
Walks
Sample
sites to walk and learn. We will pick 10
sites to do a survey. We will make our own markers since we have not yet heard
from the County Park Commission.