The burn debate and the Decline of Turkeys

[saltysenior]

  To a certain extent, all reasons for the decline are valid ....However the problem is widespread through out the East and most reasons mentioned do not hold true in all areas of the East.. I do not have an answer, but I know there is a problem...

    All i know that in 55 years of turkey hunting I can say ''I've seen them come and I've seen them go''

[DC1.]

Having been on a USFS burn crew and a biologist, this OP has no understanding of Rx burning and the dynamics of it. The Ping Pong ball ignition is used in remote area where personal are hard pressed to reach remote areas. With short burning weather Windows, and large areas that need rotational burning, they must employ all available techniques to get burns on the ground. Also, the forest service is in the business of forestry. No in the business of wildlife. That is the USFWS. They are burning for forest production. Managing for good timber often contradicts good wildlife management. Just look at timber companies.

In your post you say the forest service is not in the business of wildlife so why are there wildlife management areas inside the National Forrest?

The forest service is not in the wildlife business. That is their problem. They have to pander to everybody. Off road atv users, loggers, nature lovers, hikers, hunters, fisherman, wilderness folks, etc.
I worked 5 years on a USFWS prescribed fire crew. I also burn a bunch with friends in the spring. USFWS mission is simple and makes it easy to accomplish that mission. We put alot of fire on the ground.

Helicopters don't use a napalm like substance. The balls are filled with pottasium permaganate and injected with ethylene glycol to set off an exothermic reaction. We used to play hand ball with them on severity assignments. Delay time is the amount of glycol injected. We used the chopper twice. Both times it was unsafe to put people interior so we lit the edges and allowed the helicopter to burn out the interior. One burn was 12k acres and the other 3k.

Kansas is considered a top turkey state correct? A large portion burns every year. This year in a few county are 2.5 million acres were lit. I burn my place every year. Next year will be a burn as late as I can get it into May if I think it will still carry fire. Late growing season burns are the best for killing brush in my experience.

They should call them Timber Management Areas then!

It is in the name.

US FOREST Service.
The agency's mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the 's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. - See more at: http://fs.fed.us/about-agency#sthash.WD5RgT3o.dpuf

I understand the U.S. FORREST SERVICE is in the timber business, so why waist money on signs, printouts,boundary markers and man power promoting a WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREA if your not going to take some interest in the WILDLIFE?

[rblake]

Hopefully a steady diet of cicadas will boost the population. 

[RiverClark1991]

I live in South Carolina and the past few years has been nothing but late burning on the Sumter national forest wma thousands of acres was burned on the enoree river I'm not a rocket scientist but why not schedule the burns earlier in season instead of when hens are nesting , and baby rabbits and deer are on the ground it just seems like there is way to much land being burned to fast at one time to me but maybe in wrong

[HogBiologist]

I understand the U.S. FORREST SERVICE is in the timber business, so why waist money on signs, printouts,boundary markers and man power promoting a WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREA if your not going to take some interest in the WILDLIFE?

PR. It looks good.

[GobbleNut]

I understand the U.S. FOREST SERVICE is in the timber business, so why waist money on signs, printouts,boundary markers and man power promoting a WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREA if your not going to take some interest in the WILDLIFE?

"Forest" and "timber" are not synonymous,...and the presumption that because the Forest Service has "forest" in the name and therefore the agency is all about timber production is misguided.  The Forest Service is in the business of managing the publically-owned natural resources that exist within our national forest systems.

The Forest Service is a "multiple-use" agency.  Their mission is to manage "our" forests in the best interest of the overall forest ecosystem, while taking into account the desires of the various interest groups that utilize the forest in a variety of different ways.  That management is "supposedly" science-based, and every action taken in managing Forest Service lands is presumably properly "vetted", while also balanced, to insure the best possibly outcome within the forest ecosystem.  Whether or not that management strategy involves timber harvest, prescribed burning, or any number of other management strategies should be, and probably is for the most part, based on science. 

Perhaps federally-managed forests in other parts of the country have timber harvest as a significant tool in that management, but in this region (southwest) it is secondary to most other multiple-use components.  It is almost entirely used as a tool for wildfire prevention, as is prescribed burning.  In addition, prescribed burns, and when they take place here, are based strictly on very specific forest conditions that occur at very specific times of the year.  Those conditions occur pretty rarely in this country, and unfortunately, there are times when those conditions just happen to conflict with things like turkey nesting.

Simply put, when faced with a choice between burning up a few turkey nests and the possibility of a wildfire scorching a few hundred thousand acres of forest habitat, the turkeys are going to lose out every time.

This is not to say that there are not political and economic forces that influence this decision-making process.  There are,...and that is why it is so important for all of us to be vigilant about questioning management practices when they appear to be questionable.  However, the tendency of some to paint the Forest Service with a broad brush of managing our forest deceitfully, in my opinion and based on my experiences dealing with the agency here, is unwarranted.