Woodlands Management Committee Meeting Minutes
Attendees: Phil Notestine, Martha Dwyer-Bergman, Jerry
Uhrig
Administrative
Minutes from the October
meeting are on the website.
Deer
Phil
reported that there have been 11 deer culled by the bow hunters, 3 bucks and 8
does.
Beavers
The
beaver colony in the
Jerry
mentioned that Rick Miles (Cliff's son), an environmental sciences major in
college, is looking for a GIS project. He has proposed studying the beaver
site. Jerry, Cliff, and Rick plan to visit the site over Thanksgiving, when
Rick will be home from college.
Martha
asked what research has been done on the effects of beavers to the environment.
Jerry said that the most immediate effect would be loss of large numbers of
trees and shrubs due to flooding and the beavers' need for food and shelter.
This was readily apparent in the photos taken of the downstream area, which had
been flooded for several years.
Phil
suggested that a pilot he knows, Bill Wimmer, might
be interested in flying over the site and taking photographs to delineate the
extent of the flooding.
Invasives
Jerry
removed all the ailanthus saplings and seedlings from the
The
small ailanthus trees at the Fliflet Bird Sanctuary
were a little harder to deal with. Many of them had been cut off at ground
level years before. So what appeared to be small seedlings and saplings were
really root sprouts. These break off promptly under the force of the Weed
Wrench leaving the stump. Since the stumps are generally too short or too thick
to grasp with a Weed Wrench, there are three options: 1) keep removing the root
spouts so that the roots eventually die, or 2) apply herbicide to the stumps,
or 3) it may be possible in some cases to dig up the roots. The job is not
finished.
Jerry
went over the invasive calendar for the Home and School Bulletin.
Grants
NRCS has announced the availability of project grants
for the coming year. Projects that may be eligible will address Early Successional Habitats, which includes pollinator species
habitat and grassland bird habitat; Wetlands, which includes coastal mud flats
and wetland forests; Disturbance Dependent Habitats, which include
fire-dependent forests and scrub/shrub habitats; and Bog turtle habitats.
Jerry
noted that we have applied in the past for these grants but have not gotten
funding. We agreed to explore further to
determine if this is a good opportunity for us. The application deadline is
A question was raised about
the back portion of
Phil noted that a good
discussion of the geology of our area can be found by "googling"
Newark Bight. One good website that the search will turn up is the following.
http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/bight/newark.html