Grasslands
& Your Woods
“Grasslands & Your Woods” is the topic of
the Thursday, February 9, 2017, meeting of the Cumberland Woodland Owners
Association. Stefan Karkuff, Farm Bill Biologist at Pheasants Forever,
will speak on methods for designing, developing, and funding wildlife habitat
improvements on private lands. The meeting will be at 7:00 PM, at the
Franklin County Ag Heritage Building which is located at 185 Franklin Farm Lane
in Chambersburg. The meeting is open to the public. You do
not have to be a member of the association and there is no cost to attend.
The meeting is handicap accessible. Directions are available at: http://extension.psu.edu/franklin/directions.
Most
Pennsylvania woodlands and surrounding openings can be excellent wildlife
habitat areas for a variety of birds and animals if there is a diversity of
mixtures of overstory tree species and under-story vegetation. Whether or not
you actively manage, the vegetative structure of your woodland will change over
time. As this structure changes, your woodland will become more or less diverse
and some species of birds and animals will benefit more than others. If
you want to optimize habitat development for the widest range of bird and
animal species, you need to concentrate on maintaining as much vegetative
diversity in your woodland as possible. If you want to maximize certain habitat
improvement benefits for individual bird and animal species, you will need to
target specific woodland management activities in specific areas to meet the
special needs of those species.
There are many
things you can do to attract wildlife to your woodlands. Often, the
management practices associated with wildlife habitat improvement provide other
conservation benefits such as reduced soil erosion and better water
quality. How much time and effort you want to spend is entirely up to
you. Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Biologists possess
the knowledge of federal, state, and local programs to assist landowners in
finding the right program to meet your personal habitat and land use
goals.
The Cumberland Woodland Owners Association is
an organization of forestland owners and others interested in forestry issues
in south central Pennsylvania. For more information about the meeting or
the Cumberland Woodland Owners Association, contact Fred Peabody at
717-776-3565 (email: fredp5@earthlink.net)
or Mike Waldron, 717-677-7317 (email: mdwald57@yahoo.com).
