Re-wilding

[lowkey]

I have heard talk recently of rewilding areas in western countries. Of course Yellowstone is a notorious example, the feds having reintroduced wolves. I also heard that Scotland has reintroduced wolves after probably thousands of years without them.

I find this to be a peculiar policy and see both the positive and negative side of such an effort. The farmers may be the first to suffer. But ultimately, an entire population could suffer if their imports of food were not able to keep up with the lack of production at home.

On the other hand, one can imagine people becoming more naturally minded and learning to live in a manner more like our distant ancestors with less abuse of the ecosystem.

My question then is this: Will Pennsylvania pursue such a policy in its wilderness?
And how might this effect trout populations.....

 

[salmonoid]

How are you defining rewilding in PA?

 

[troutbert]

I haven't heard of any proposals for wolf introductions in PA.

Have you? If so, who has made them?

And have you seen any kind of extensive re-wilding of landscapes on public lands in PA? If so, where?

I think the trend is the other way. Increasing cutting up of forest lands with natural gas exploration, with all the roads, gas lines, well pads etc. that goes with that.

And then there is the de-forestation for elk habitat, and all the food plots the game commission is putting in the woods.

And the private forest lands are getting carved up for houses, both vacation homes and primary residences.

The OP mentions PA wilderness. But does such a thing actually exist? I can't think of any place in PA that I would call wilderness.

Are there any places in PA that are more than 3 miles from a road? A good hiker can walk 3 miles in one hour.

 

[krayfish2]

They've already established lion populations......or have they?

 

[troutbert]

lowkey wrote:
I have heard talk recently of rewilding areas in western countries. Of course Yellowstone is a notorious example, the feds having reintroduced wolves.

Of course Yellowstone is the BEST KNOWN example.

"notorious" implies that it was a bad thing. "best known" is neutral.

 

[troutbert]

lowkey wrote:

I also heard that Scotland has reintroduced wolves after probably thousands of years without them.

Wikipedia says the last wolf was killed in Scotland in 1680, so 335 years ago.

 

[sandfly]

Susquehannock State Forest, Pennsylvania

This protected forest on the rolling hills of the Allegheny Plateau in central Pennsylvania is among the most remote places east of the Mississippi. And how remote would that be, exactly? In Cherry Springs State Park, inside the state forest, there is so little light pollution that the Milky Way actually casts a shadow, which is why it was designated as the second International Dark Sky Park by the International Dark-Sky Association. Susquehannock State Forest also contains Pennsylvania's most remote place, Hammersley Wild Area.

 

[sandfly]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2014/03/25/wilderness-area-state-national-forest/6861737/

where I got the info

 

[sandfly]

Hammersley Wild Area is a 30,253-acre (12,243 ha) wild area in the Susquehannock State Forest in Potter and Clinton counties in north-central Pennsylvania in the United States.[2] It is the largest area without a road in Pennsylvania and the state's second largest wild area (the first being Quehanna Wild Area).[3][4] The wild area is named for Hammersley Fork, a tributary of Kettle Creek, which flows through the area. The wild area includes 10.78 miles (17.35 km) of the Susquehannock Trail System, a 85-mile (137 km) loop hiking trail almost entirely on state forest land.[3][5]

 

[WildTigerTrout]

One example that comes to mind is the PGC reintroducing the Fisher to Pa.'s forest. They were native here and went extinct many years ago. They are nothing but an over grown weasel and I suspect the farmers got tired of losing their chickens and I am pretty certain they helped speed along their extinction. :-x Since the reintroduction in about 1994 small game populations have dropped a great deal. Fishers will kill anything and not just when they are hungry. I swear they kill for fun. The Fishers have increased their numbers in the last twenty years or so that the PGC now has a short trapping season for them. IMO they should have been left extinct. Example of re-wilding?

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Or the Elk Herd?

 

[Camp]

Fisher is a very good example. Squirrel numbers have plummeted since they arrived. Already plenty of coyote to serve as natures predator, no desire to add wolves to the mix.

 

[troutbert]

When I was a kid eagles were not present in PA and osprey were rare. Now both are pretty common.

There are stretches of the West Branch Susquehanna that were dead in the 1970s that now support smallmouth bass.

These seem like good things. They don't affect the food supply.

Regarding wolves, I've never heard anyone propose that for PA, and it would never fly here. There simply aren't large, extensive wilderness areas in PA.

The Hammersley Wild area is only about 30,000 acres.

The Frank-Church-River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho is 2.3 million acres, and it is connected to millions more acres of very wild country.

Yellowstone Park is of similar size and is also connected to other wild lands outside the park.

The Quehanna "wild area" in PA is not wilderness. It's got roads all through it, including a paved road, the Quehanna Highway, and gas lines, power lines, cabins etc.

 

[PocketWater]

I wouldn't mind the elk herd getting bigger if they want to really get into re-wilding. I think they reintroduced fishers to help try and control the porcupine population, but could be wrong.

 

[FarmerDave]

Fisher were reintroduced to help control the porcupine population that was severely out of control.

Squirrel are not in danger of becoming extinct as a result, any time soon.

Edit: Sorry PW, didn't see yours.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

The elk herd is growing and expanding their range. When I was a kid, I never saw any signs of elk as far north as my cabin on Denton Hill. When they started expanding in the Kettle Creek region, it was a big deal. Now, I'm seeing signs of elk NORTH of Coudersport.

 

[geebee]

we could do with a few wolves here in chester co - deer herds over the last two years have exploded.

The UK has many successful reintroductions under its belt now - otters, grey foxes, red squirrels, beavers, ospreys etc etc and some that failed.

Germany I understand already re-introduced wolves and is looking at re-wilding bears in the black forest.

Northern PA from what I've seen shouldn't have any issues with re-wilding species along the Appalachians.

its our fault these things are extinct and so we should put them back if we can.

 

[salmonoid]

On a small acreage scale, I've seen re-wilding occur when groups try to remove invasive species. It can at times be ironic. Take for instance Pine Grove Furnace State Park. A couple of years ago, from the Bendersville Road downstream along Mountain Creek to Fuller Lake, Friends of Pine Grove Furnace removed the invasive plant growth on both sides of the Appalachian Trail, for about a hundred feet. They must have used a bulldozer to do it, as earth was pushed around. In the process, they exposed all kinds of slag from the old iron furnace dumps. They may have had good intentions in removing the invasive species, but in the process, they revealed the scars that the iron makers left behind a hundred or more years ago. Our impact on the landscape is permanent, at least on the scale of a few human lifespans.

Our intentions in "re-wilding" are often good, but without understanding all the interactions that an ecosystem has, and without fully restoring all the pieces that have been extirpated, and without removing humans from the equation, things often don't go as expected. The wild areas in PA are wilder than other parts of the state, but they're still criss-crossed by pipelines, roads (Quehanna is bisected by one and has an interesting history as well, being a nuclear research center), or there are remains of old logging era operations or other resource extraction operations. You'll find old apple trees many places where old logging camps or homesteads once were.

I don't know what the inspiration for the "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly" story was, but I often think the unintended consequences of a small event, such as species reintroduction, are captured well in that story.

 

[tomitrout]

On a small acreage scale, I've seen re-wilding occur when groups try to remove invasive species. It can at times be ironic. Take for instance Pine Grove Furnace State Park. A couple of years ago, from the Bendersville Road downstream along Mountain Creek to Fuller Lake, Friends of Pine Grove Furnace removed the invasive plant growth on both sides of the Appalachian Trail, for about a hundred feet. They must have used a bulldozer to do it, as earth was pushed around. In the process, they exposed all kinds of slag from the old iron furnace dumps. They may have had good intentions in removing the invasive species, but in the process, they revealed the scars that the iron makers left behind a hundred or more years ago. Our impact on the landscape is permanent, at least on the scale of a few human lifespans.

Along that same time frame we had some pretty gnarly flash floods, one in particular wiped out part of the Fuller Lake beach and the levee between the lake and the stream. I'm pretty sure it also made a mess of things upstream in the area you mention if my memory serves. I'm sure that the work done upstream along the hiker biker path had more purpose to it than just removing the invasives....and it's actually a pretty nice little picnic area now if you haven't been there lately.

 

[WildTigerTrout]

FarmerDave wrote:
Fisher were reintroduced to help control the porcupine population that was severely out of control.

Squirrel are not in danger of becoming extinct as a result, any time soon.

Edit: Sorry PW, didn't see yours.

I live in the NC part of the state and the porcupine population where I live has NEVER been out of control. Sure we have them but I see just as many as before the re-introduction of the Fisher. Mr. Fisher must be eating something besides porcupines like maybe squirrels, rabbits, wild game birds and their eggs, even the farmer's chickens, etc. I do know the squirrel population in this area has really dropped off since Mr. Fisher moved into the neighborhood. You very seldom even see a squirrel here anymore.