Region Archives: US East

Carolina Wildlife Conservation Center workers are searching for two missing and badly burned bobcats spotted on the side of Crocker Road in Kings Mountain after a major wildfire at Crowders Mountain State Park. The staff spent two hours searching for them with headlamps later in the evening, but they were unable to be located, the conservation center said. The crew is asking the public to be aware of the bobcats and continue looking for them, but warns against approaching the injured animals. …The 730-acre wildfire, which has been burning since Sunday, spread through Crowders Mountain State Park early Monday morning and has been called the “Coyote Fire,” according to the North Carolina Forest Service. As of Monday afternoon the fire is 95% contained. …The N.C. Forest Service said no homes or structures are threatened at this time. The cause of the fire is undetermined and under is under investigation.

©J.D. Willson

VESUVIUS, Va. — A wildfire burning in the Big Levels region of the Blue Ridge Mountains is causing concern for one tiny creature found only in Virginia; the Big Levels salamander. So far, that fire has scorched nearly two thousand acres in the area where the Augusta, Nelson, and Rockbridge County lines meet. That is also the only place in the world where the Big Levels salamander can be found, and even then, they only live on a few select mountain tops. “They occupy these high elevation areas; they’re very isolated on these mountain tops,” said Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources State Herpetologist J.D. Kleopher. “That makes them very vulnerable to things like climate change and habitat change.” Big Levels salamanders are important to the ecosystem because they help to control the insect population, and they serve as a food source for bears, coyotes, turkeys, and other birds.

With a $23 billion wood and paper products industry in South Carolina, it might not be surprising that there’s a Greenville-based organization dedicated to preserving the state’s working forests and the communities that depend on them. What might be surprising is that organization’s mission is national in scope, and its creation was prompted by the U.S. and Canadian governments as part of a settlement in a decades-old timber trade dispute. The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities has been working for almost two decades all over the country to ensure the nation’s working forests are sustainably managed. This work not only produces environmental benefits but helps support the timber industry and, through that support, the people and communities that rely on working forests for their livelihoods, according to Pete Madden, the endowment’s president and CEO.

During 35 years with the U.S. Forest Service, I had the privilege of working on behalf of our nation’s federally managed forests from coast to coast. But there is a special place in my heart for New England’s North Woods, where I started my career in 1968. I sent many trees to the mill. I also changed. As a close observer of the Forest Service for a half century, I am deeply troubled by the agency’s persistent, mistaken focus on timber production when there are larger issues at stake for our communities, the climate, and biodiversity. Against science and common sense, logging projects in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, target invaluable mature and old-growth forests and roadless areas. It’s time for a fundamental reconsideration of the value of our nation’s public forestlands.

Rhinelander, WI – Forests in Wisconsin today, covering over 17.5 million acres of land and supporting a $37 billion forest products sector, face serious environmental and economic threats. Calling for renewed statewide action to address these threats to forests and the forest-based economy, Wisconsin’s Green Fire (WGF) has published a new report: Wisconsin Forests at Risk: Engaging Wisconsinites in Another Century of Forest Conservation. WGF Executive Director Meleesa Johnson says, “If we want to continue enjoying the benefits provided by our forests, from sawlogs and pulp to clean air and clean water, Wisconsin needs to take new steps as leaders in forest conservation. We want everyone at the table to plan for the future of our forests.” One opportunity to join the conversation will be at the WGF webinar on Wisconsin Forests at Risk on January 15, 2025…

The number of longleaf pines is increasing across the Southeast, with some of the biggest improvements in Georgia, according to a new study from the U.S. Forest Service. Some 57 million acres of longleaf pine forest once stretched across the southeast from Virginia to Texas. But much of it was clear-cut for timber by the early 20th century. Because longleaf pines rely on regular fires to thrive, many were lost to fire suppression, too, until only about 3 million acres remained. The new study found that the amount of longleaf pine forest has increased thanks to concerted restoration efforts. “We’ve reversed this trajectory of decline that’s been going on for several centuries,” said study author Kevin Potter, a research ecologist at the USFS Southern Research Station. …Overall, the study found that while the total amount of longleaf pine is increasing, other forest types have less longleaf pine in them than previously.

Ash Latimer

Cumberland County, Virginia — Ash Latimer and his dad run Conservation Forests, a forest management and logging business that is taking a slightly unconventional approach to what he sees as an extractive industry. He’s cutting selectively, which is not an uncommon practice. It’s what he’s leaving behind that’s unusual. “We’re really looking to leave behind the highest-quality trees, leave the most money — so even if we’re taking out a fair amount of volume, we’re still leaving actually a lot of value,” Latimer said. Latimer and the landowners he works with are choosing to sacrifice some immediate profits for other benefits down the line. They’re still harvesting good wood, and enough of it to justify the costs of the work. It’s used for veneer, bourbon barrels, pallets, railroad ties and more. …Latimer’s driven by a widespread failure of eastern hardwood forest regeneration. …young white oak volumes in Virginia declined by 21% between 2003 and 2022. 

New Hampshire and Vermont are home to two great environmental success stories: the White Mountain and Green Mountain National Forests. …Today, the U.S. Forest Service stewards the eastern national forests as places where a mix of activities occur, ranging from protection of wilderness to supporting recreation opportunities to sustainably managing wood products and a diversity of wildlife habitats. …The multiple-use principle seeks to serve as many of us as possible, which sometimes doesn’t suit uncompromising special interests. The principle of multiple use is being challenged currently by a Vermont-based lawsuit over two timber harvests in the White Mountain National Forest. It highlights the divide among those who support all the benefits forests provide us and those who automatically view any logging as destructive rather than restorative. …While we appreciate those who care about how forests are managed, we believe the individuals behind this lawsuit are willfully misinformed. 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — As more people in Tennessee move to forested areas of the state, the Department of Agriculture is pushing to create a new team to train first responders how to fight wildfires. According to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA), Tennessee has one of the fastest-growing wildland urban interfaces in the country. In recent years, the area where humans and nature meet has increased around 2 million acres in the state. Those areas are more prone to wildfires. “As urbanization and people build residences, some of them build within the trees and [there is] not much access,” said Dr. Charlie Hatcher, TDA Commissioner. … “What that does for us in wildland fire fighting is it makes it infinitely more complex to fight those fires, because now we’re not just dealing with trees and plants, we’re also dealing with people’s homes and communities,” Megan Carpenter with the TDA said.

The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is placing quarantines around the state to contain an outbreak of invasive species, mainly by way of transporting firewood infested with pests. Laurel Downs, the forest health conservation coordinator for the national Don’t Move Firewood campaign, said when insects get introduced into a new ecosystem from global trade, sometimes through packaging material and mostly by firewood transportation, they typically lack any natural predators in the new environment. …State quarantines have been placed in Michigan on the mountain pine beetle (all firewood), the balsam woolly adelgid (fir) and the hemlock wooly adelgid (hemlock with needles and twigs), according to the report. To be transported legally to a quarantined area, firewood must be treated to a specific standard. …Michigan is one of two states working on implementing a firewood certification program in 2025, according to the report.

A spruce budworm outbreak has plagued Maine’s northern borders for nearly two decades, with the tree-killing moths making sporadic incursions from Quebec but never reaching numbers that suggest a repeat of the outbreak that ravaged the state a half-century ago. This summer, though, state entomologist Michael Parisio surveyed the northwestern woods of Aroostook County by plane. A 3,000-acre hot spot of partially denuded spruce-fir forest suggested the once-a-generation outbreak everyone had feared might have begun. …”We’ve had a few scares here and there, but 3,000 acres, that’s significant damage,” Parisio said. “All evidence suggests it will persist and expand. We knew it would get here eventually, but knowing doesn’t make what’s going to happen any easier.” University of Maine modeling shows that more than 178,000 acres are on the verge of defoliation. …The last outbreak lasted from 1967 to 1993, covering 136 million acres across eastern Canada and Maine.

The red-cockaded woodpecker’s population had dwindled to around 1,470 clusters when federal officials decided to classify the bird as endangered back in 1970. But decades of efforts to preserve the species’ habitats have substantially increased the bird’s numbers. The repopulation effort was so successful, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that late last month the federal government changed the status of the bird from endangered to threatened. Some environmental groups, however, are worried that the federal government’s decision might be premature. …The rare birds have lost habitat to increasing hurricanes and tropical storms sparked by climate change, human encroachment and too few older trees. …Tim Lowrimore, president and CEO of the Georgia Forestry Association, sees the status change as worthy of praise. It’s an example of what can happen when forest landowners are dedicated to wildlife conservation and land management, he said.

As Tennessee’s communities increasingly bleed into wildlife areas, the state’s Division of Forestry is pushing for a pilot program to shore up wildfire defenses. The “Wildland Urban Interface” — the line where nature and human development collide — has increased by about 2 million acres in Tennessee, State Forester Heather Slayton said. The National Association of State Foresters estimated 43,771 communities in the South are at risk for wildfire as of 2021. “We’ve had a lot of folks come into Tennessee, and they want to obviously live in our natural resources, so managing for wildfire is becoming more complex,” she said. Slayton is asking for an additional $245,000 in the Department of Agriculture and Forestry budget to build a 3-person wildfire resilience team that would train volunteer and paid fire departments in the Chattanooga, Knoxville and Crossville area.

GEORGIA — In clearing in a pine forest 75 miles east of Macon, in Treutlen County, a pile of stumps and root balls grows as Wade Webb’s logging crew adapts machines made for cutting down trees to the job of slowly plucking them out of the jumble left by the 90-mph winds of Hurricane Helene. …Estimated commercial timber losses come to about $1.8 billion across the four states hit hardest by Helene — Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida. But Georgia losses by themselves account for about three quarters of that, some $1.3 billion. That’s according to a joint report by the Georgia Forestry Commission and the Warnell School of Forestry at the University of Georgia. …Gillis said the longer a fallen tree stays on the ground, the more the wood degrades, or blues, and once a tree blues it’s really only good for pulpwood, for paper and cardboard, from then on.

The last decade’s economic, social, and environmental changes have affected the production, consumption, prices, and trade of forest products. This report provides an overview of changes in the U.S. South. …The region today faces uncertainties related to the impacts of new products and wood pellets on traditional products, the effects of climate change on forest growth and disturbances, an evolving trade posture, and economic and population growth. This Outlook sought to clarify the overall effects of some of these phenomena without asserting levels of confidence about their likelihoods. …The study highlighted several knowledge gaps. First, climate is affecting growth, but the growth effects of rising temperatures and higher CO2 levels may be offset by changes in precipitation and shrinking CO2 absorptive capacity of trees, attenuating anticipated increasing timber inventory volumes. …Alterations in disturbances from this changing climate also affect timber mortality, which may counteract increased forest gross growth.