January 1, 2006

 Ruffed Grouse Society Board of Directors Announces New Executive Director & CEO

 Coraopolis, PA – The Ruffed Grouse Society, a national conservation organization dedicated to improving the environment for ruffed grouse, American woodcock and other forest wildlife through maintenance, improvement and expansion of woodland habitat, has named Dr. Michael D. Zagata as its new Executive Director and CEO, effective 1/2/06. Mike succeeds Robert L. Patterson Jr., who led the society for 4 years. Patterson contributed greatly to the financial stability of the Ruffed Grouse Society and will continue to serve in a financial capacity.

 Wayne Jacobson, president of the Ruffed Grouse Society, is enthusiastic about Mike’s hiring. “Mike has an impressive background in business and wildlife conservation. He earned a Ph. D. in wildlife from Iowa State University and spent time teaching and conducting wildlife research. Later, he gained business experience while holding senior environmental positions with Tenneco Inc. and Transco Energy Co., and government experience while serving as Commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. He’s acquired extensive expertise working in the business sector, improving wildlife habitat, and making a difference on conservation issues. Mike’s past experience will serve him well in his new position”.

 As a certified wildlife biologist and certified environmental professional, Mike is looking forward to his newest challenge as executive director and CEO. “Ruffed grouse, woodcock and the species that live in a similar environment are different from “wilderness” species in that they require active forest management in order to prosper. That management generally involves creating small forest openings using clear-cutting or fire in order to create conditions that favor the plants needed by them for food and cover. The Ruffed Grouse Society’s mission is to improve the environment for ruffed grouse, woodcock and other forest wildlife. It is an ecologically sound mission that uses at least two of the tools, controlled fire and axe, advocated by Aldo Leopold, the father of Wildlife Management. As a professional wildlife manager, it is a mission in which I strongly believe. I am enthusiastic about working with our partners to implement those management practices on federal, state, and private forest lands.

 As the Society’s new executive director I look forward to working with the board, members, sponsors, office staff, biologists and regional directors, and our other “customers” to set meaningful, realistic goals and objectives. Doing such will better enable the Society to undertake educational, legislative, and forest-land management programs that will result in the improvement of the environment where ruffed grouse, woodcock and many songbirds live. That will enable these birds to thrive, and that means increased recreational opportunities, often measured in flushes per hour, for those who enjoy hunting and watching grouse and woodcock, and listening to grouse drumming, woodcock “peenting”, and songbirds singing,” stated Mike.

 He has a life-long commitment to education, conservation and the political process, and has served in an executive capacity in the conservation community, industry, and government. Mike’s research focused on the impact of forest cutting practices on wildlife while at the School of Forest Resources at the University of Maine. As Director of Tenneco Oil Co.’s Environmental, Health & Safety division, Mike developed and implemented pro-active approaches to environmental issues like wetlands mitigation banking and was recognized by national conservation and environmental groups. While Vice-President of Transco Energy Co., conservation programs were established and key wildlife habitat was acquired. Mike brings the prestige of having served as Commissioner (CEO) for the New York Sate Dept. of Environmental Conservation, a position he received under the appointment of Governor George Pataki, after being unanimously confirmed by the Senate. As a CEO of a 4,000 person department, Mike worked to strengthen the infrastructure that would improve administration of the State’s environmental laws and regulations, including renewable natural resources like forest products, fish and wildlife. He was a leader in focusing attention on the economic contribution to the State’s economy from recreational tourism, including fishing and hunting. Additionally while serving in a quasi-government position at the federal level with the National Research Council’s “Committee on Agriculture”, Mike developed a program on renewable natural resources. His leadership in the field of conservation was evident while serving as Field Director for the Wildlife Society and Director of Federal Relations in DC for the National Audubon Society.

 Mike has received numerous awards including the National Wildlife Federation’s “Conservation Achievement Award”, the Conservation Fund’s “Alexander Calder Award” and Ducks Unlimited’s “Silver Teal” Award. Additionally, while serving as Commissioner of NY’s Dept. of Conservation, Mike was given the title “Sportsman of the Year” by the Ruffed Grouse Society, as he was responsible for lands dedicated to the management of the ruffed grouse.

Mike and his wife Beth reside in rural upstate NY, with their three Gordon Setters - all grouse hunters.

RUFFED GROUSE SOCIETY MINNESOTAACTIVITY REPORT

January 1, 2006

 Management Area Projects:

The first Management Area Project (MAP) inMinnesotawas initiated 19 years ago, in 1987. Since that time the Ruffed Grouse Society (RGS) has funded 125 MAP projects statewide at a cost of almost three-quarters of a million dollars. These funds have helped enhance ruffed grouse and woodcock habitat on about 139,000 acres in the state. Projects have covered the spectrum from building road accesses to allow cost-effective harvesting of smaller blocks of timber, to constructing drumming logs. The attached map shows the distribution of projects by county. The bulk of the projects are located in counties with substantial quantities of public land, resource managers concerned about grouse habitat and very active RGS chapters.

2005 Projects included:

• Hardwood Marking – Managers marked 230 acres of aspen inclusions within maple/basswood forests on WMAs inAitkinCountyprior to timber sales. Regenerating these inclusions creates islands of great grouse habitat within a sea of older forests.
• Trail mowing – RGS funded the maintenance of 64 miles of walking trails inItascaandSt. LouisCounties. This work improves the hunting opportunities in those areas, but also maintains logging roads for future habitat management efforts.
• MorphMeadows Road– RGS contributed towards a major road improvement project on Morph Meadows WMA in NW Itasca County. A large beaver dam was removed and replaced with culverts and water control structures, providing access to 1,200 acres of habitat.
• WMA Inventory – RGS provided over $10,000 to the DNR to perform forest inventories on WMAs. These will identify aspen stands in need of immediate regeneration before they are lost, as well as identify those that can be maintained a while to provide grouse nesting and winter food resources.

Special Projects:

RGS funds Special Projects that typically involve education projects, surveys or indirect management assistance. Highlights in 2005 include funding youth days, sending children to Upland Bird Camp, funding golden-winged warbler surveys, and funding the Becoming an Outdoors Woman program. Education is critical to achieving the goals of RGS inMinnesota.

Outreach and Advocacy:

RGS biologists are very active in many forest wildlife management issues and educational programs within their regions. For example, the Minnesota Regional Biologist accomplished the following in the period from 2001-2005:

• Resource Agency Advocacy: Attended over 200 meetings with resource managers with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, USDA Forest Service, county land management departments and others. Provided analysis and written comments on 52 different land management plans, including MNDNR Subsection Forest Management Plans, USFS Environmental Assessments, USFS Environmental Impact Statements and USFS Forest Plan Revision documents. Appointed to eleven different standing committees, including Senator Coleman’s Sportsmen’s Advisory Committee and Chairman of the MNDNR Budgetary Oversight Committee. Testified 7 times before the state legislature or legislative commissions.
• Outreach: Had over 125 press contacts, including numerous television and radio appearances, press releases, interviews and magazine articles. Maintained an e-mail newsletter group with over 700 members to inform and educate supporters. Spoke to 85 different groups (~2,750 attendees) about forest management, often invited as a keynote speaker. Manned numerous booths at trade shows and events.
• Education: Held 5 forest wildlife management and landowner workshops. Wrote and printed numerous educational brochures and interpretive signs. Organized and taught at 34 different youth events attended by over 2,200 children and 12 different field events attended by 250 adults. Conducted 24 different private landowner consultations covering ~7,500 acres of land.
• Fund-raising: Awarded 9 grants totaling $108,300 for education and habitat efforts. Attended numerous RGS fund-raising events.

National Forest Efforts:

RGS organized a coalition of 6 conservation organizations and 4 Chippewa tribes to meet with officials from the Chippewa and Superior National Forests. We were very concerned about their reduced emphasis on game management and efforts to reduce forest access for hunters. Together we were able to get the Forest Service to increase efforts to maintain healthy populations of deer, bear, moose, grouse and woodcock inMinnesota.

Minnesota Grouse Enthusiasts!
December, 2005

 
It is always bittersweet to look out the window in late December and realize that the season’s wing shooting opportunities are winding down. Sure, diehards can still get out for some late season grouse and pheasant hunting, but by and large, the guns are oiled and put away, the gear is stowed and the dogs are beginning to regain weight lost in October. All in all, it has been a great season. I had some wonderful hunts with good old friends and made some new ones. I can close my eyes now and see with great clarity the bright eye of the second Hun taken on a covey rise over my old shorthair, the corkscrew flight of the woodcock that twice left me staring with both barrels smoking, the satisfying thump of a solidly hit pheasant, and of course the red phase male grouse tumbling after I nailed it in a desperate left-to-right swinging shot. These are the things I live for, and I am grateful to have the opportunities I get as an upland bird hunter in Minnesota.

 Grouse numbers appeared to be up from last year. My own records indicate about a 20% increase over last year. I get about the same report from others that keep track of such things. Lastly, the bird count per hunter effort from the National Grouse and Woodcock Hunt seems to agree. Since drumming counts were the same as last year, we must attribute the increase to good hatching conditions and brood survival over the summer. Given a good winter, we should be able to expect a further increase next year. Hope so!

 Woodcock are another bright spot. We must be doing something right because it seemed like the little swamp bats were everywhere this fall. They sure are a joy to work young dogs on! Let’s hope the trend continues!

 National Forest Happenings

 In September we reported on the efforts of a coalition of hunting groups and Chippewa tribes in getting the Chippewa and Superior National Forests to pay more attention to game management, hunters and forest access. This group is comprised of the Society, the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, the Minnesota Trappers Association, Minnesota Bear Guides Association, North American Bear Foundation, Woodcock Minnesota, the 1854 Authority (Bois Forte and Grand Portage Bands) and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. 

 The second meeting with USDA Forest Service officials was held on December 8 in Grand Rapids. We worked through several issues and made some progress on getting better cooperation and recognition from the Service. Key concessions include:

• The Forest Service and the DNR will develop a process and appoint key individuals to meet early in the vegetation management planning process and coordinate efforts regarding game management, roads and trails and other resource management issues.
• The Forest Service, DNR and tribes will form a group to coordinate moose management efforts on the Superior Forest.
• The Forest Service will consider game animal’s habitat needs in vegetation planning and disclose the ramifications of their actions on game populations.
• The Forest Service will strive to make their environmental documents more readable, understandable and transparent on the effects of vegetation and road management on hunting access and success.
• While we couldn’t convince them to repeal their ban on cross-country travel for trapping and big game retrieval, the Service will strive to come up with a better definition of “cross country”. 

RGS remains concerned that the Forest Service, particularly the Chippewa National Forest, has drastically reduced aspen clearcutting. The last year that they achieved the 1986 Forest Plan level of 5,200 acres per year was in 1994. They only clearcut 700 acres of forest on the Chippewa in 2004. While there seems to be a lot of grouse habitat out there right now, in ten years there will be a noticeable lack of places to hunt.

 The new plan is in place and it calls for less clearcutting than the old plan. We tried to improve it, but it’s done. Now we need to make the USFS adhere to it. The Plan calls for 39% clearcutting. Five projects have been initiated under it, and the average is only 23% clearcutting. Judging from the old plan, there is no real effort to adhere to them.

 RGS recently commented on the initial scoping phase of two projects – the Southeast Project on the Chippewa and the Devils Trout Project on the Superior. We certainly hope the agency takes our perspective into account as these develop. The Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Northwoods Project on the Blackduck District of the Chippewa is out for 30-day public review. The Blackduck District has been the one bright spot on the Chippewa. The Ranger and his staff do their best to balance the forest restoration aspects of the Plan with a need to maintain game habitat and access. Nonetheless, we encourage RGS members to get involved in the process and make your voice heard! You can order a copy of the EA by calling 218-835-4291 or view it online at http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/chippewa/plan/nepa/eas.

BUILDING ON COMMON GROUND IN PLANNING PROCESSES
The Chippewa National Forest, DNR and local counties developed a joint baseline map of inventoried roads and trails within their jurisdictions that will be made available to the public during the January open houses in Deer River, Marcell, Walker, Bemidji and Remer. In addition to the Chippewa National Forest, seven state forests (Big Fork, Bowstring, Blackduck, Buena Vista, Battleground, Remer and Welsh Lake) are part of the combined planning efforts. Itasca, Beltrami and Cass county forest lands are also involved in this planning process.While there are different timelines for completing the OHV planning as well as legal and policy differences between the federal, state and county jurisdictions, these agencies are jointly conducting the initial public input process and forming interagency working teams to better coordinate this effort. In the end, each jurisdiction (federal, state and county) will create its own OHV plan and route designations for lands under its management.

 Conservation Easements, Taxes and Access, Oh My!

 Yes, Dorothy, things are changing rapidly here in the Forested portion of Oz. For years and years industrial forestlands received a tax break under the Forest Tax Law, but they had to remain open to public hunting. That program taxed based on the value of the annual growth of trees on the land. It worked well when aspen had little value. But in a great example of the Laws of Economics, when the supply of mature harvestable aspen declined, its value increased. Five years ago aspen was selling for $25 or less per cord on the stump. It now averages almost three times that, and has been known to fetch five times as much! This increase made the Forest Tax Law untenable for the timber industry, and they asked for a change.

 So along came the Sustainable Forest Incentives Act (SFIA). It provides a per acre incentive payment to landowners who have over 20 acres of forestland, have a management plan for the forest, file an 8-year covenant against development and allow public access if they have enrolled over 1,920 acres. The last stipulation was added to encourage private landowners to enroll without the public access requirement, yet keep industrial lands open for recreation. Note, this is NOT a tax relief program. The land is taxed as 2B timberlands (typically) and the landowner pays the ad valorem rate. They later get an incentive check.

 Some industrial landowners opted to not enroll much of their land in the SFIA program, but rather to lease the hunting rights to individual hunt clubs and paid the full tax burden. While we are concerned about the precedent this sets and the implications for public hunting opportunities, it is their right as a landowner to make that decision. However, there have been recent efforts to change the SFIA to provide the incentive on leased lands. The Society is opposed to this change, feeling that it would provide the wrong kind of incentive and lead other industrial landowners to follow suit. At risk is access to over one million acres of land. Hunters displaced from those lands would go to public lands, thereby increasing crowding and the potential for conflict.

 On a similar topic, conservation easements are becoming a hot topic in northern Minnesota. These have been used extensively in other portions of the country, but are just now being applied to forestlands in our area. Here’s how it works: A landowner sells a portion of his rights for his land, in perpetuity, to a second party who then is listed on the property deed. In most cases, the right to divide and develop land (forever) is sold, along with a promise to sustainably manage the forestlands and allow public access. The DNR often holds the easement. Funding comes from a mix of private (Nature Conservancy, Trust for Public Land, etc.) and public (state bonding bills, federal Forest Legacy Program) sources.

 Conservation easements can be a powerful tool for maintaining working forests, but they can also be abused and work against the Society’s goals of maintaining a healthy balance of ALL age classes and types of forest. As in many things, the “Devil’s in the Details”. What criteria determine which lands are “at risk” for development before applying public funds to private landowners? What is “sustainable” forestry? What is “public access”? Who monitors the land to ensure the easement is enforced? These are legitimate questions any member of the public deserves answers to before public dollars are expended.

 Last year, 5,000 acres of Potlatch land near Brainerd were enrolled in the federal Forest Legacy program and placed under a conservation easement. Another Brainerd area Potlatch parcel and a parcel of Rajala land near Grand Rapids were proposed this year. The Blandin Foundation and The Nature Conservancy have set aside $3 million for easements in the greater Itasca County area. They hope to garner further private donations and get state and federal matching funds to get over $20 million and have hired a staff person to promote and oversee the program.

 Again, there have been discussions about the SFIA program, as it relates to lands with conservation easements on them. Should these lands be eligible for the forestry incentive payment? Our stance has been to oppose this. As we recently pointed out, this would be like buying the development rights, forest management and public access twice!

 Biomass Harvesting

Another relatively new activity in the forest is large-scale biomass harvesting – growing, cutting or collecting woody material to burn for energy. In many ways, this has occurred since the dawn of time – collecting firewood to heat the home. But recently the community energy plants in Hibbing and Chisholm converted to burning biomass. By law, some could be waste material, but some had to be “closed loop”, meaning grown and cut specifically for energy generation. Both of these sources have good and bad aspects. The Forest Resources Council is developing guidelines for biomass harvesting and RGS is remaining involved in the process. Following are sources of biomass as well as pros and cons:

 • Slash – The tree tops and unmerchantable material left over after a logging operation can be bundled or chipped and shipped to an energy plant. The effects of this are a matter of degree. Old decadent stands have so much slash that if left on-site it can impede the regeneration of the stand. But taking too much can remove all habitat for small animals and possibly remove too many nutrients from the soil.
• Brush – Northern Minnesota has all sorts of brushlands. DNR tries to maintain these open landscapes through prescribed burning, which is expensive, risky and time-consuming. With proper equipment, brush could be harvested in a manner that provides quality habitat for species like sharp-tailed grouse and golden-winged warblers.
• Hybrid Poplar – This genetically engineered distant cousin of our popple (aspen) is farmed for fiber and biomass. It provides very little wildlife habitat, as it is grown in rows and is frequently fertilized and herbicided to maximize growth rates. The power plants are planting thousands of acres of this within their 100 mile procurement zone, with the intention of harvesting it on 5 year rotations. Unfortunately, the best places to plant it are in old hayfields. In this portion of the state, old hay fields are frequently used as dancing grounds by sharp-tailed grouse. These open-landscape birds are barely holding on in northeastern Minnesota. They do not tolerate trees on pr near their dancing grounds. DNR is working with the power plants on plantation placement.
• Trimmings – Thinning young aspen stands and improving plantations by cutting young cull trees has always been an expensive endeavor because there was no market for the cut material.  This new market could provide an economic incentive to these activities. Unfortunately, thinning young aspen stands can open them up to the degree that they lose habitat value for ruffed grouse and woodcock.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions:

Rick Horton, Regional Biologist, Ruffed Grouse Society

P.O. Box 657, Grand Rapids, MN  55744 (218) 327-2524 email: rgshort@uslink.net

The Ruffed Grouse Society is an international organization actively involved in promoting forest wildlife conservation on public and private lands throughout North America. For information on the Ruffed Grouse Society, please call 888-564-6747 or check out the RGS website at www.ruffedgrousesociety.org