Tag: hardwoods

Ten Threats: Saving Wetland Remnants

  • Winous Point Marsh Conservancy and Duck Hunting Club's Roy Kroll collects millet. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Among the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is the loss of thousands of square miles of wetlands along the lakes. From Superior to Ontario and on up the St. Lawrence Seaway, we’ve lost some of the most important wildlife habitat along the edges of the lakes. For example, 200 years ago, much of the southern shore of Lake Erie was a huge swamp. Most of those wetlands have been drained and filled since European settlement. Julie Grant reports on efforts to maintain the little bit that remains:

Transcript

In our next report in the series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes, we’re going to hear about changes to a large area that drains into the lakes. Our guide through the series is the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham:


Among the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is the loss of thousands of square miles of wetlands along the lakes. From Superior to Ontario and on up the St. Lawrence Seaway, we’ve lost some of the most important wildlife habitat along the edges of the lakes. For example, 200 years ago, much of the southern shore of Lake Erie was a huge swamp. Most of those wetlands have been drained and filled since European settlement. Julie Grant reports on efforts to maintain the little bit that remains:


Researchers from the Cleveland area park district have been driving hours to get here to this bit of swamp nearly every day since last spring. Biologist Rick Spence and his partner wade through two feet of boot-sucking mud. They’re looking for turtles. Blanding’s turtles, to be exact. With a distinctive bright yellow chin and throat, it’s designated as a ‘species of special concern’ in Ohio…


“The Blanding’s originally were found in this area in the southern portion of Lake Erie, along this basin area. And so there’s a lot of the Blanding’s in here. It doesn’t get any better than this. We have nothing like this really around the Cleveland area that I know of.”


This area is the 150 year-old Winous Point Marsh Conservancy and Duck Hunting Club. It’s the largest privately owned coastal wetland in Ohio. It’s a thin strip of marsh that runs eight and a half miles along the shore.


Roy Kroll has been Executive Director of the Duck Hunting Club for more than twenty years. He keeps busy balancing the needs of researchers, biology classes, and reporters.


Kroll takes me onto the marsh in a wooden boat. He uses an old-fashioned pole to push us through water that’s only a couple of inches deep. It’s slow and quiet. He stops and uses the pole to slap the water for a call and response with migratory birds. (slap) He can hear who’s hiding in the cattails, arrowhead, and other emergent wetland plants…


(Kroll slaps water twice, birds respond)


“Well, looks like the teal have left and the rail are here.”


Kroll says the 4,500 acre marsh harbors over 100,000 waterfowl, mostly ducks, during November’s peak migration. There aren’t many places like this left on the Lake Erie coastline. More than 90 percent of the region’s wetlands have been drained. Most of that was done in the mid-1800s.


The area was once known as the Great Black Swamp. It stretched from Lake Erie all the way to Indiana. Much of it was under a dense canopy of hardwood trees. Kroll says it was a great system to filter river waters entering the lake. But European settlers and land speculators cut down most of the trees, dug ditches and straightened stream channels to move water quickly off the land. They built roads and transformed the swamp into rich, productive farm fields.


“You have to put yourself in the time period. Rightfully so, that was considered progress. And now we have to look back and say, well, yeah, it was progress and now it looks like it’s not progress. And if we’re not going to eliminate all these wetlands, we’re going to have to take some proactive measures to do it.”


Even at Winous Point, some of the wetlands are in poor condition. Standing on a man-made dike we look one way and see all kinds of plants: cattails, duckweed, and lily pads. But look to the side that’s not protected by the dike, and there’s no vegetation. Hand-drawn maps from the 1800s show a diversity of plants here, but now it looks like an open bay…


“What we’re looking at now is an open water wetland. And again, with no plants, we don’t have the structure for fish, invertebrates, and even plankton and algae to colonize on plant stems. It’s nowhere near as productive.”


Kroll says it’s not nearly as productive as the protected area. He says high lake levels, invasive carp, and pollution running off the land and into the rivers that drain into the lake have all made it tough for marsh vegetation to survive. Without plants, Kroll says the wetland can’t clean water running off the land…into the lake. He says it’s unrealistic to expect a short band of remnant wetlands to do the job of a hundreds of square miles of swamp forest.


“The key is to start at the upstream far upstream head of the watershed and begin restoring wetlands from there down to here.”


There are some efforts to re-store small parts of the Great Black Swamp. But Kroll says it’s also important to protect the little bit of the original coastal wetlands that are still left.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Grant.

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Clear-Cut Demonstration Angers Forest’s Neighbors

  • Stands of pine like this have been clear-cut to demonstrate an option that forest owners can take to manage their property. (Photo by Keran McKenzie)

Most forests in the Great Lakes region are privately owned. That concerns the U.S. Forest Service because the agency says many forest owners don’t know how to properly manage their woodlands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports that a new education project that demonstrates tree-harvesting techniques has angered some residents:

Transcript

Most forests in the Great Lakes region are privately owned. That concerns the U.S.
Forest Service because the agency says many forest owners don’t know how to properly
manage their woodlands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports that a
new education project that demonstrates tree-harvesting techniques has angered some residents:


(sound of chain saws)


Workers are cutting down trees in a fifty-year-old pine crop. At the same time, state
foresters are leading a botanist, a private tree farmer, and a reporter through this forest
education site. One of the foresters, Rick Miller, is directing the chain saws to show what
needs to be cut for what’s called a “crop tree release.”


“This one here we selected out with the orange flags, the trees that show the best form and
dominance in the crown. They have a nice big healthy crown. And then what we’re doing is removing
any trees that are touching the crowns of those ones that are orange, and just opening it up
to give the crown more room up there to spread out and possibly increase their growth and their
vigor.”


A forest owner who wants to make money off his pine stand might do a crop tree release to
improve the quality of the remaining timber. The bigger the tree, the more money it’s worth
to a logging company.


Heading deeper in, a crop of pine trees lined up like soldiers trails to our right, and wilder
hardwoods shade us from the left. There are signs to demarcate different timbering techniques:
improvement cut, understory removal, selective cut. Project manager Frank Corona stops at one
section of oaks, maples and cherries.


“You have small trees, medium trees, some larger trees. Trees are probably selectively
harvested in here and you have all different ages of trees in this stand…”


The cool shaded path abruptly opens up. The lush canopy is replaced by harsh sunlight.


GRANT: “Oh wow, so this is the clear-cut…”


CORONA: “This is the clear-cut.”


The forest is gone… cut to the ground. All that remains are the 120 hardwood stumps on
the torn-up dirt. Botanist Steve McKee suports construction of the demonstration site.
But he also loves trees.


GRANT: “What do you think when you see that clear-cut?”


MCKEE: “Well, clear-cuts are never pretty, ya know? So, uh, I think the most shocking thing
for me is I’ve walked in this my whole life and it was surprising. But I knew it
was coming too, so…”


But some people in the community say they didn’t know the demonstration project would include
clear-cutting older trees. Anne McCormack hikes the Mohican nearly every day, clearing trails,
cleaning garbage, or enjoying the woods. The education site has been roped off from the public
during construction. But she found out there was a clear-cut demonstration in an old growth
section of the forest.


“So, I just was… I was just shocked. I mean I can’t say anything more. I just felt
terrible for… I felt terrible for the trees that stood there since before white settlers
were even in Mohican. And there they just were bulldozed and chain cut for education.
I mean, it doesn’t add up.”


McCormack’s not the only one who’s upset. A lot of people didn’t realize this is what
the Forest Service had in mind. Back at the clear-cut site, Corona says many trees suffer
from disease when they mature to 120 years. He says it’s a good age for private land owners
to consider the clear-cut option.


“This was a time where before they would rot out or anything and we see more damage, more
susceptibility health-wise in the entire stand, we could make a harvest in here and utilize
those trees and start this whole new cycle of growth in here.”


The foresters and forest owners say clear-cutting is a viable option, and just one of the
many examples at the demonstration project in the Mohican forest.


Tree farmer Scott Galloway says people need to understand that owning a forest is another
form of family farming. For instance, he got a call recently from a man who inherited 30
acres and needed money right away. He doesn’t know how to manage his tree crop.


“Where does he go? How do you make the right decisions quickly? The faster he can make
decisions, in his lifetime with his forest, the sooner he’ll be able to enjoy the benefits
of those decisions. It’s all about forestry, wildlife, natural resources. So the more education he
can get, the better those decisions will be and the better off all of us are environmentally because of it.”


The Forest Service says a demonstration project is needed because forest acreage is getting
cut up into smaller and smaller parcels. That means the forests are owned by more and more
people who need to know how to manage their timber. The Forest Service hopes this project
will help them make better decisions.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

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Seneca Children Learn to Preserve Culture

Almost forty years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a dam in northwestern Pennsylvania. Hundreds of Seneca Indians lost their land, homes and traditions to the dam’s reservoir. Now a new generation of Senecas is trying to preserve a way of life that many believe was nearly inundated by this federal project. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Murray has this story:

Transcript

Almost forty years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a dam in northwestern
Pennsylvania. Hundreds of Seneca Indians lost their land, homes and traditions to the dam’s
reservoir. Now a new generation of Senecas is trying to preserve a way of life that many believe
was nearly inundated by this federal project. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Murray
has this story:


(students playing outside school)


It’s a sunny day in Salamanca, New York. Young Seneca students lurch and lunge in a game of
keep away.


(students playing game: “Let go! Let go!”)


Although they look like any group of kids
at recess, they share a big responsibility.


(kids playing ball outside)


“My Indian name is Gayanose. My English name is Brooke Crouse- Kennedy. I’m here because
I’m trying to be one of the ones to preserve our culture and just learn.”


Brooke and 12 other students are here at the Faithkeepers School to learn the Seneca language
and the teachings of the Longhouse religion. The health of these cultural benchmarks declined
after the Kinzua Reservoir flooded one-third of the Alleghany Reservation and scattered tribal
families. The cedar wood school now rests on the upper reaches of the reservation – a narrow strip
of land that follows the Allegheny River from Pennsylvania to New York.


(Dowdy and kids in classroom)


“What kinds of things do you need that’s growing on earth?”


“Food.”


This morning, longtime teacher Sandy Dowdy, works with very young students. In 1998, she and
her husband Dar rallied the community and started the school. They’re two of only 200 Senecas
who can still speak their language.


“Now do you see why Yoedzade is so important? Everything we need is on Yoedzade.”


Thanking Yoedzade, the earth, and its creator for the bounty of nature is the building block for
learning the Seneca language and ceremonies. Today, this handful of students learns a shorter
version of the thanksgiving speech. The speech stresses the interconnection between the natural
world and the well being of individual people.


(Dowdy and kids recite thanksgiving speech in Seneca)


“We cover just the ceremonial part and the giving thanks part in the morning and then in the
afternoon, we study things. We look into erosion and pollution and all of those things
that we can do to protect those things we just gave thanks for.”


These lessons have a real life application in the school’s small gardens. The early Senecas
depended on gardens to survive. Fruits and vegetables were so important to the tribe’s existence
that they appear in many of their stories and ceremonies. Senecas continued to farm until their
fertile bottom land was flooded by the Kinzua reservoir.


Following the traditional cycles of their
ancestors, Landon Sequoyah and the other kids now help with planting and harvesting.


“The corn’s right there. A long time ago they used to have big things of corn and beans and squash. That’s the Three
Sisters. That’s the Three Sisters. Guindioth and the Three Sisters. He was going back
up to the Skyworld and they grabbed onto his legs and they told him not to go or
they could go with them but he was like,’No, you have to stay down
here to feed our people.'”


Murray: “If you hadn’t been in school would you ever had a garden?”


“I don’t think so cause I was going to a public school and I didn’t know hardly anything about our
culture.”


Many Senecas on the Alleghany Reservation believe their culture was nearly lost when the
Kinzua Dam was built. The Senecas and others strongly protested this project. But their
arguments were turned down in the courts and the U.S. Congress. Tyler Heron is an elder and
Seneca historian. He says that the Canandaigua Treaty of 1794 guaranteed that Seneca land
would remain untouched by the United States government.


“But the politics change over 200 years. We weren’t the threat. We weren’t the political power
any more. The threat, I guess, was the river itself to Pittsburgh …the flooding. It was the
threat to the economy.”


Major floods along the lower Allegheny prompted the federal government to act. To make way
for the dam, 600 Senecas were moved from their homes along the riverbanks. In 1964,
contractors burned and bulldozed Seneca houses, trees and public buildings. Churches and
cemeteries were moved. Heron, who was 17 at the time, says life as he knew it has changed.


“Even the ecology of the river itself has changed. My wife, for instance, used to make her extra
money as a teenager by catching soft-shelled crabs and selling them to the bait companies
but I don’t think there’s a soft-shelled crab in the river anymore.”


Aquatic plants were lost as well. The reservoir also inundated hardwoods used for carving
ceremonial masks and many medicinal plants. Heron, whose grandchildren attend the
Faithkeepers School, says these children are learning to identify the remaining plants. They’re
learning to speak the language and lead the ceremonies and carry on for a community that lost its
ancestral home along the Allegheny.


“Our existence is dependent on us …dependent on us only. And we have to keep our identifiers.
How do we keep our identity? Well,language. It starts right here.”


(Kids playing in front of Faithkeepers school. One child speaks in seneca. Fades into traditional
Seneca chant.)


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Ann Murray.

Fighting Beech Bark Disease

Forestry experts throughout the Midwest have been experimenting with new ways to fight beech bark disease. The disease has already killed millions of beech trees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Ontario and Michigan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has more:

Transcript

Forestry experts throughout the Great Lakes have been experimenting with new ways to fight beech bark disease. The disease has already killed millions of beech trees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Ontario and Michigan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has more…


Beech bark disease is actually a deadly tag-team combination of an insect that invades a tree and a fungus that finishes it off. Michigan State University entomologist Deb McCullough is one of several scientists trying to stop the spread of the disease in Michigan…


“What we’re going to see in the forest is gonna be something like Dutch Elm disease, the biggest, oldest beech trees are most vulnerable to this insect and to the disease, and as beech bark disease moves through the state, those are the ones that are going to die out first.”


McCullough says researchers have had some limited success with injecting pesticides into infected trees. And scrubbing the trees with soapy water seems to work too. But she says such methods simply aren’t practical when you’re dealing with the millions of beech trees that inhabit the region’s forests. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.

Beech Trees Battle Disease

A disease that’s destroying trees is spreading through parts of the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A disease that’s destroying trees is spreading through parts of the Great Lakes Region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


Beech bark disease has been damaging beech trees in eastern Canada and New England for a century. The disease has been creeping westward across the upper sections of U.S. since then. Last year Beech bark disease was discovered in the upper peninsula of Michigan. The disease is caused by two pests. First an insect called the wooly beech scale attacks the tree and open wounds. Then a fungus enters the bark, killing the trees. Often the beech trees are knocked over by high winds because of the damage done to them. Not all beech trees succumb to the disease. Scientists are now studying trees that appear resistant to beech bark disease, and they’re also looking for natural predators of the scale insect or the fungus that damages beeches. In the meantime, forest officials are cutting down beeches damaged by the disease. Before the trees fall down on someone unexpectedly.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.