A previous article in Outdoor News stated that some wildlife managers are concerned that the slowdown of aspen harvest in Minnesota could eventually affect the future population of deer and apparently reduce their numbers. The reduction of the deer population as a result of reduced harvests of aspen is not necessarily all bad.
In Wisconsin wildlife officials are having problems with associated cwd mortality caused by the high deer population and recommend the reduction of deer densities to reduce the spread of CWD . They have been forced to shoot many deer in certain areas to reduce the herd. It is much better to have a low density healthy deer population than a diseased high population. Wisconsin and Illinois have also reached an agreement to reduce chronic wasting disease in deer by reducing deer densities and limiting geographic spread of the disease through herd reduction goals.
In 2000 the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Forest Service charging that the agency had mismanaged old growth habitat for the northern Goshawk in 11 National Forest. Soon after in 2001 the two National Forests in Minnesota reduced Aspen timber sales by more than 50 percent. That shattered the theory of even flow of forest resources. A shortage of available Aspen resulted and the price of aspen sky rocketed going from $ 35.00 a cord to over $ 80.00 a cord in some cases. By 2002 almost 30 percent of Aspen timber was coming from private land. In 2002 a DNR graphic model of age-acreage distribution of the 5.5 million acres of Aspen showed that a shortage of Aspen was immanent.
Aspen harvesting isn’t the only factor in having a large deer population. For a number of years mild winters have also been a factor in the large deer herd. So far the slowdown in the harvest of aspen is not that bad. According to the Public Stumpage price review the average annual cut for the past 8 years has been about 850,000 cords per year. The previous annual cut of aspen has been over 1 million cords per year and not really sustainable.
FIRE IN ARIZONA
Arizona has experienced three large fires over the past three years. This year a fire north of Flagstaff has burned more than 15,000 acres of scenic forests covering 23 square miles of land and costing $ 8.6 million dollars to contain. The fire was started by an abandoned camp fire. So far large fires out west have not been as numerous as in previous years.
Ridlington is a media volunteer for the Society of American Foresters. He was IRRRC Forester in Aitkin County for 22 years from 1957 to 1980 and District Forester in Park Rapids for seven years.
