Bear Sighting at Twin Creek MetroPark!

Potential Bear Scat

Exciting news over the weekend.  A black bear was observed at Twin Creek MetroPark.  Unfortunately it sounds like it scared a park visitor, but that kind of figures since bears have not been part of the local fauna for a while.  An interesting side note, I photographed some scat that looked like bear poo along Twin Creek about a mile from the recent sighting.  Here is a pic of the poo.

Apparently sightings like this in bear-less areas are usually of young males that are prone to wander.  A few years ago we had a wandering bear that many people saw at Germantown MetroPark.  However, I don't think it is totally random that both have turned up in the Twin Valley.

Protected Lands in Twin Valley

Larry Frimerman, Director of Three Valley Conservation Trust  on  a protected forest tract in the Twin Valley

The "Twin Valley", for us MetroParkers, is the combined natural assets of Germantown MetroPark, Twin Creek Corridor, and Upper Twin Conservation Areas.  It also includes lands protected by the Three Valley Conservation Trust in Preble County, the Miami Conservancy District, and the Warren County Park District.  Together over 7,000 acres of land are protected, much of it forested.  Thanks to continuous efforts by these partners over the last 40 years they are almost completely connected together along this beautiful stream.  This has created an invitation to wildlife to recolonize the land.  I don't doubt that this is why cool stuff always turns up in the Twin Valley.  In addition to this bear, the valley is home to wild turkey, river otter, bobcat, beaver, and many species of birds not found in other parks.

The takeaway here is that the "macro" end of conservation is important to larger wildlife that needs room to stretch their legs, while the "micro" end stresses the need to protect and restore the forest quilt.

Honeysuckle Thoughts

Anyone who lives in southwest Ohio is familiar with Amur Honeysuckle (Lonicera mackii) whether they know the plant or not.  Native to east Asia, this invasive shrub was widely cultivated and spread by the US Soil Conservation Service under the name Red Rem Honeysuckle in the 1960's and 70's.  It appears to have no significant enemies, birds and animals spread the seeds around, and the plant seems to have found its way into nearly every nook and cranny of the landscape.

Happy Honeysuckle

In Five Rivers MetroParks it has been enemy #1 for many years.  The agency has committed large amounts of labor from staff and volunteers as well as paid contractors to get rid of this shrub.  Why?  Several reasons.  For one, it crowds out native plants.  It leafs out early and keeps its leaves late making a dense shade that not much can grow under.  There is some evidence that it is actually toxic to other plants.  It makes an impenetrable wall of green in the understory of woodlands that makes it hard or impossible to walk through.  Plenty of reason to despise this shrub.

To many people I know (including myself) getting rid of this menace has been a sacred mission.  I've attacked it with Roundup, chainsaw, brush cutter, bowsaw, basal bark spray, loppers and probably other ways.  In most cases, not matter how good of job you think you did, it comes back from resprouts, seeds  in the soil, or seeds brought in by birds or deer.

Dull Woods

I've assumed it is a menace that spreads its degrading influence everywhere.  Lately though, I've been trying to look at it more objectively.  For instance, there is a really cool woods MetroParks manages near Brookville called Dull Woods.  This little woodlot is only 8 acres.  It is an island of woods in a sea of flat farmland.  Honeysuckle thrives on the edges of the adjacent Wolf Creek Rail Trail bikeway.  Yet, if you pass into this little woods there is hardly a stem of honeysuckle to be found.  MetroParks has never done any management there, it has remained virtually honeysuckle free all by itself.  Why? The answer, I think, is really pretty simple.  Dull Woods is a very high quality old-growth remnant.  It has a high diversity of native plants.  I suspect it has never been heavily grazed, and only selectively logged, if that.  As a result the soils are still loose and uncompacted.  They retain their original component of organic matter and little wee beasties.  The trees and plants form a complex and tight net of interconnected roots that are a barrier to invasive plants like honeysuckle. 


Most woodlots like this have been heavily grazed by cattle, heavily logged for their timber, and otherwise heavily disturbed.  Honeysuckle, like many invasives, is a plant that is adapted to colonizing disturbed landscapes.  The story of Dull Woods can be seen in any park or natural area in southwest Ohio, if not so dramatically.  I've started to look at honeysuckle not as a plague but rather as a barometer of forest health. Perhaps we should really think of honeysuckle as a way that Mother Nature is speaking to us. The more honeysuckle, the more degraded the woods and vice versa.  If you think about it this way perhaps it is easier to deal with.  For you land managers, start with your best, most diverse forested areas where there is not much honeysuckle.  Get rid of it there first.  Then work outward removing it.  The native flora, insects (and who knows what else) can spread into the cleared area over time and set up the PROCESS necessary to defeat this foe.  Killing it alone does not work in disturbed environments.  Think process.

Ash Trees Coming Down

While all these seedling trees are going into the ground, some ash trees are being cut down.  Trees that are on park boundaries or road edges that would threaten people or property are being cut down by contractors (Davey Tree).  There are quite a few.  Most people are not thinking about this problem that is unfolding.  I see ash trees on roadways, hanging over houses, and pretty much everywhere that no one is addressing.  Insurance companies are going to be busy when they start to fall.

1500 trees planted at Sugarcreek!

Just finished a tree planting at Sugarcreek MetroPark.  An old pasture was planted with about 1500 native trees.  About 60 volunteers came and everyone did a great job!  Replanting this field will create a larger block of forest that will be great for forest dependent wildlife not to mention the trees themselves.  Many are not reproducing well on their own.

Tree planted include white oak, red oak, swamp white oak, redbud, flowering dogwood, pignut hickory, Ohio Buckeye, American Elm, sycamore, and bur oak.

Volunteers Planting Trees!

At Five Rivers MetroParks we are very busy planting trees.  Believe it or not we plan on planting about 80,000 young trees in the MetroParks this spring.  This is the first year in a very long time that the agency has done any serious tree planting.

Last weekend trees were planted by volunteers at Carriage Hill and Germantown MetroParks, about 2,500 total.  The week before 1000 were planted at Carriage Hill.  I know those tubes don't look like trees, they are tree shelters.  They protect the little seedlings from rabbits, mice, and especially deer.  Without them the survival of the seedlings is very low.  The little trees grow inside the transluscent tube.  By the time they grow out the top they are too high for the deer to bother with.

The seedlings that the volunteers planted were home grown by MetroParks staff at Cox Arboretum and dozens of committed volunteers.  We call this program the Forest Foster Tree Program.  Locally collected seeds are germinated at Cox Arboretum, and placed into small tubes.  Volunteers take them home for the summer and take care of them.  They bring them back in the fall where they are put to bed for the winter.

Yesterday another big tree planting was started at the Medlar Conservation Area south of Miamisburg.  They are being planted on a farm MetroParks purchased a few years ago using Clean Ohio grant funds.  The grant also covered the cost of paying a contractor to plant 24,000 trees on the old farm fields there.  The trees are being planted by the firm Cardno-JF New.  The bare root trees were transported to the site in a refrigerated truck.  The contractors dip the tree roots in a tub containing wee beasties called micorrhizal fungi to help them grow.  Then they load them into buckets on the back of  tree planter.  A tractor pulls the tree planter and the operator of the tree planter drops the seedlings into a groove in the soil created by the planter.  Two small wheels then close the dirt around the new tree.  Pretty slick.

The contractors can out-plant the volunteers for sure.  But of course, we had to pay them.  At least 150 volunteers turned out to help plant the their areas.  The smiles on their faces, and the good feelings they got by working to make the world a better place is an intangible benefit that goes way beyond a budget.  Who knows, one of those kids could have been inspired to become the next Aldo Leopold!

If anyone wants to help, we sure need it.  Just go to www. metroparks.org/forests and sign up.  The next scheduled planting is Saturday, March 24 at Carriage Hill MetroPark.