8:33AM
Good morning. Today starts out with a discussion of young growth - generally trees less than 150 years old - headed by Mike McClellan. Apparently the bird discussion yesterday was quite good, and I hope to have those notes available today, as well as Brown Bear. My apologies for not having those available yet. Last night we had a spectacular presentation on deer modeling for subsistence and sport hunting; it was created by Larry Edwards and clearly delineated the differences between good science and data application and what happens currently on the Tongass. This afternoon there will be a Forest Service presentation on the same subject: the deer.

The Tongass has 430,000 acres of young growth, 30% of which are in old growth reserves. About 25,000 acres need some sort of treatment.

6 classes of young growth, roughly: growth on wetlands after clear cutting, growth response to pre commercial thinning, wood quality effects of thinning and pruning, performance of FVS-SEAPROG growth model (they say it performs well generally), silvicultural treatments and under story restoration, effects of variable retention harvesting of old growth. Those last two will be focused on from a conservation perspective.

Graphics displayed currently compare deer days per hectare, with old growth over 400, young growth less than 100, and commercial thinning around 300. I am not certain how these numbers are derived.

Lots of talk about how managed stands provide good foraging for deer.

Adaptive management: assess, design, implement, monitor, evaluate, adjust, assess, design...

8:56AM
Various experiments are being conducted under the acronym TWYGS - Tongass-wide young growth stands: planting red alder in recently cut stands, pre commercial thinning of 15 to 20 year old stands, pre commercial thinning and pruning of 25 to 35 year old stands, thinning of older non timber stands by girdling, treating riparian stands (this is just developing). There is also an extensive commercial thinning study taking place on Heceta Island via strip thinning and two intensities of individual tree selection, 25 and 50 percent basal area removal. They are applying this in single aged and two aged stands.

Alternatives to clear cutting is being briefly discussed now: study started in 1994, cutting intensity from 0 - 100%, spatial arrangement is in clumps, gaps, or uniform, and patch size is .2 .8 and 1.75 acres. The slide shows a graphic of various arrangements with 25% retention.

A disturbing result is the mortality of residual trees. After the harvesting and 5 years have passed, the survival percentages are incredibly low. These slides are worth studying further.

Mike McClellan firmly believes in active management of young stands. as it has a significant potential for restoring diverse and abundant under story plant communities and perhaps other old growth structure. Residual old growth trees and snags left for structural purposes are at considerable risk for losses due to wind throw. It may take a long time to get new knowledge through these studies. Increased emphasis on process level mechanistic studies, coupled with modeling, may provide answers to management concerns in a more timely manner.

Considerations: continue with TWYGS and ATC studies, add riparian and perhaps variable spacing studies. complement existing empirical trials with a new program investigating processes, etc. Develop markets for small diameter wood will be essential for active management of young stands for habitat improvement purposes (this would subsidize the more widespread management of young growth).

No data currently to quantify clumping sizes that won't be adverse. From a logger standpoint, strips of 200 to 300 feet are necessary. From an ecological standpoint, we do not have data for stripping. It is ecosystem dependent, perhaps on species.

9:33AM
From an operational viewpoint, all the ATC studies were performed via helicopter logging. Linda Christian did some sort of analysis on this (she is not present), and covered costs and production rates at Portage and perhaps the second ATC site. The estimates for setup costs are up only 5% - not a huge additional burden, according to Mike McClellan. Colleen Grundy does not think that within the conservation strategy there was any contribution from young growth. She believes there should be consideration of older young growth in the matrix. She does not believe there should be a standard and guideline for implementation at this point.

A problem for ATC study is finding meaningful info for wildlife. Under story vegetation for deer is the only real measure, currently. Difficult to get measurements for birds and for small mammals. It is cost prohibitive.

It appears there is a push to include young growth, through study, in a market demand process. Can some commercial value be defined?

Because beach fringe is out of the commercial base, they have been the least treated. There is a presenter stating now that there should be some treatment of beach fringe for the sake of wildlife.

It may be good for the Forest Service to do a comprehensive study of where these areas are and what value that they have, according to some of the working group members.

There is some question about how different restoration would be if it was pursued in the name of wildlife rather than for timber. No clear answer it seems, although there is some value to returning to stands several years after thinning to revamp for wildlife.

9:40AM
BEAR REPORT rough draft that I will clean up later, but here is the gist of the presentation....

Rob Flynn:
Hi public interest and demand – viewing, hunting etc
Need to id and mana imp habitat and impact of mana activities
TLMP S&G
Imp eating/foraging sites need addit protect (in addition to rip buff, beach etc)
Approx 500 ft addit prot for feeding/pot hum interact spots
Import bear eatin site
What does “important” mean in this context
Hi use? Veg food sources? Salmon areas?
Prev info
Admiralty and Chich study sites
New info
Chich- LaVern Beier, Steve Lewis, Grey Pendleton, Rod Flynn
Compare resource use and #s in areas w/ diff mana prescrips
FS & native corp study areas (Freshwater Crk & Spasski Crk)
Very hi-tech study w/ GIS info, DNA analysis
Male/female behavior on streams is very diff
Spasski: Male goes up & down regularly
Spasski: Female spends little time on stream, but goes up into forest regularaly (even w/o a cub up in a den)
Freshwater: fm goes up into mtns almost daily using diff routes, lots of time at mouth of stream
Males focus on streams, but a little less than Spasski
Seal Crk: fm goes up quite a bit, but again does visit stream
Freshwater: fm generally stay closer to the stream, but bulk of concentration is near the crk
Spasski: still bulk is very near stream, but they go much further on avg
More bear use on Freshwater, particularly for fm
Bears eat considerable amount of veg, even when on streams
More salmon consumed on Freshwater, some on Spasski ate hardly any
Considerations
All salmon spawning streams are imp for bear foraging
Sm. streams imp for females and young
Forested buffers are imp
Streams w/ substantial buffers have more fms, they spend more time there, they eat more salmon
More salmon leads to healthier, more productive salmon
At least 500 ft along all salmon spawning streams
But if you want to maintain abundant pops, need 1,000 ft (b/c bulk of bear use is within 937 ft of stream)
Use GIS to map buffers, or have field folks have to prove that bears are not using the area

(DAVE STEPS OUT HERE)

A floodplain model was developed as a function of slope and distance from the stream. The model creates a variable-width buffer along salmon spawning streams.
Brown bear model as applied to salmon streams show watersheds that have the highest value.
Consideration: maintain habitat diversity, minimized habitat fragmentation, eliminate road access, minimize human access, maintain watershed integrity.
S&G apply to road access. From a management stand point, brown bear guidelines are of high priority, especially in the guiding arena. FS, FG use these as guidelines for harvest in Unit 4. Work is now underway from FS and FG for Unit 1, on the Unich, Bradford. FG are receiving funding for looking at brown bear density to get real representation across the land.
Kim Titus- published an article on brown bear. Class 1 streams include salmon that are little and of no use to them..there needs to be a management prescription that includes this. We need to include the fisheries to apply a look at this aspect. Class 1 vs. Class 5
Panel- We feel the same.
DeGayner- can you measure absolute density, see a population response as a behavior response?
Panel- there might be bears on the stream, but doesn’t equate to a salmon diet.
DeGayner- tie in the consequences of the fitness of the population
Panel- agree
Kim T- it is more than likely that females change their use patterns, they don’t change watersheds, social pressure of not having cover, long term pattern and changes ie salmon
In looking at the model-road or no road. Northern Kuiu- hunters say the bears are in the north. But models show with the road there are little to none.
Panel- We picked up several bears in the early 90s
Kim T- female bears on Chichagof have the smalles home ranges of any bears that have been studied in the world.
Forest- do you know the pop trend on this piece of real estate
Panel- maybe climate increase is good for bears..do you want more for the future or less..
F. Cole- in terms of comm. use what does the trend analysis show?
Panel- those typically follow where you have more people..like on the Chich-it’s not really a big impact to show concern. Guided hunting does take the majority of the bears that are harvested in Unit 1 and 4. We don’t know how the harvest of parts will increase local interest?
F. Cole- Are you seeing in the trend in the size of animals being harvested getting smaller..due to climate change, or hunted over time.
Panel- No. For both bear species, we get skull measurements, that is the reliable measure, and the sex and age..using teeth..over time there has been no change. Desired harves 60 % male, 40% female. Unit 2, we don’t see significant changes in size..subtleties can grow. As for this moment this is not a concern.
Titus:
Guides don’t always kill biggest bears, and don’t always report the truth
Kuiu did see a sig. change in skull size, sex ratios, and we imposed restrictions b/c of it
Being able to see the change means it is likely more sig. than we think
DNA technique is good b/c bear is not visually marked
Cole:
Should we modify state bear hunt regs region wide?

????
1000 ft buffer for private lands as well as NF

Flynn
Doesn’t think there is much forest beyond the 500 ft buffer on state land