A lot of people don’t realize this, but… You can benefit a lot of declining wildlife species by cutting trees. Here’s what West Virginia’s state ornithologist told me recently: "It surprises people to hear that the number 1 priority for bird conservation in West Virginia is cutting more trees." It seems counter to so much of what we hear, but the forests in the Eastern U.S. are different than the rainforests in the Amazon... I keep coming across declining wildlife species that are in need of one common habitat improvement: increased forest management. Whether it's creating forest openings, forest thinnings, young forests, clear-cuts... theres a lot of good we can do by managing our forests for structural and species diversity. We just held a workshop with some incredible expert speakers to dive into the issues and we recorded them and posted them in a playlist on our YouTube channel (link below). It was awesome, but I was missing one key speaker. I needed someone to talk about the role of a professional consulting forester. So, I thought I’d provide a breakdown here. Professional foresters can help with 3 main components of forest management: 1. developing a plan that aligns with your goals for the property (this will also qualify you for a property tax reduction in most places) 2. they represent you in arranging a logger, who is the person or company that will do the actual cutting and purchasing of the timber, and 3. marking trees for cutting or saving and making sure the logger conforms with the plan. Like any kind of service, it’s always good to meet a few people and check some references. Forest management operates on time scales of decades, so it’s something you want to think through carefully. A lot of foresters have a working understanding of wildlife responses to harvest, but if they don’t, check in with a wildlife professional or dive into some research into the habitat needs of your species of interest. A great place to start would be the recordings of the speakers at our symposium (link below). The responses I received from people truly warmed my heart, so thank you to all who attended. With forests as one of our dominant land covers in the Eastern US, I think they’re low hanging fruit to enhance wildlife habitat on the landscape. Reply below if you have questions. Let’s enhance our forests for wildlife.