Behold the Clearcut

Nothing inspires more angst and anger among armchair environmentalists than the notion of a clearcut.

Frankly a clearcut forest doesn't look all that nice. Plenty of images from the great cutover of more than a century ago feed that mindset.

Some folks believe that a clearcut is a permanent deforestation and contributes to global climate change.

Modern, scientific forestry practices today are nothing like this at all. That is not to say that clearcutting doesn't exist - it occurs when there is good reason for it to happen. Not because you want to graze cattle - but to manage the forest by means of mimicking nature.

Some forest species require disturbance (wind, fire, etc.) in order to regenerate. Forestry practices of the past century have suppressed fire (a naturally occurring phenomenon) leaving only blowdowns to regenerate certain species.

Sometimes man must intervene when man suppresses the natural order of things.

Very few people consider what Wisconsin's 16 million acres of forest would look like without the influence of science-based management practices.

Without the influence of management our forests would be predominantly one age-class (roughly 80 to 100 years old) and consisting of late succession species such as ironwood, maple and basswood.

Due to crowding most of these trees would be pole size as they compete with each other for space, light and nutrients. Many popular forest dwelling wildlife species would be sparse if not nonexistent.

Aspen is an early succession forest species that requires disturbance for regeneration. Historically vast fires provided the impetus for colonizing aspen regeneration.

Today it is the clearcut.

Clearcut a stand of aspen and within a matter of months you may have as many as 10,000 stems per acre responding to the disturbance.

This is crucial habitat for species like grouse and woodcock that thrive in early succession forest types.

The Ruffed Grouse Society has a manner of putting this in the proper frame of reference:

The next time you hear someone complain about a recent clearcut in a forest near you, let them know you think it's for the birds!

Learn more about it here.