Logging is a strange way to improve wildlife habitat

Logging is a strange way to improve wildlife habitat

EDITOR:

Western Pennsylvania is one of the best areas of the country when it comes to appealing facilities for outdoor recreation. There are nine state parks, plus the Allegheny National Forest. Four of these parks include fine bike trails, and the Allegheny River offers boating on a national wild and scenic river. Amid this host of outdoor recreation destinations there are also a number of game lands supervised by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

As a seasonal resident of northwestern Pennsylvania for many years, I appreciate what the western part of the state has to offer. But just what broad purpose the state game lands (of which, statewide, there are 287 covering some 1 million acres) fulfill somewhat eludes me.

I say this as a person who has spent much time at a cottage or at a campground close to a large game lands, No. 86, which runs along the river south of Warren and covers some 14,200 acres. I am also familiar with Game Lands 29, which covers close to 9,000 acres south of Chapman State Park. These two game lands are silent, deserted places, except for the fall hunting seasons. I have walked across Game Lands 86 a number of times, and the place, although quite scenic, seems curiously devoid of wildlife. (Not so Game Lands 29, where I have seen much game, as well as distinct mountain lion tracks, while biking along the West Branch of Tionesta Creek.)

While I’m in favor of setting aside plenty of land for outdoor recreation, I do question the vast amount of land Pennsylvania has devoted to a sport in decline, hunting, and how this land is used. Although both game lands with which I am familiar have roads designed for horse and bicycle travel, very little of this occurs. Riding a bike on the two designated roads is difficult, even dangerous, given their rough surfaces and the very hilly terrain. (The road along the creek is not a bike route now, but will be, the Commission says.)

Access to the two areas is limited. The service roads are gated. Hunters must walk in from small parking lots. Because of logging, the land off the roads is often covered with thick growth that hinders foot travel.

At the central portion of Game Lands 86 lies an area which might be viewed as a microcosm of what the Game Commission does wrong in land management. I used to hike into this area from Cloverleaf, a Route 62 campground. I found that much of this part of the game lands had been timbered and had grown up into an impenetrable thicket of maple saplings ruining it as game habitat. (Timbering augments the commission’s proceeds from hunting license sales.)

To my dismay, in recent years the Game Commission has again logged this general area, leaving a large gap along the treed ridge above the river’s Althom Eddy. Canoeists think that the gap they see from the river is storm damage. “No, that’s our Game Commission at work,” I tell them.

I find it ironic that the commission refers to logging as “wildlife habitat improvement” when the very tree species that support wildlife, such as oak, beech and black cherry, are being removed. The lush growth that results from logging can benefit deer for a few years, then the area becomes a relatively sterile “pole forest.”

A commission employee once told me that logged areas covered with thick brush also provide “refuge areas” for bear. (If so, they must have to dine elsewhere.)

As I see it, quality hunting in Pennsylvania’s game lands is seriously handicapped by the logging and by poor management.

Is it is really worth it to the state to maintain so many of these large hunting areas on behalf a declining sport, especially given the state’s budgetary woes?

ROBERT R. STANGER

Boardman