I'd like to point out that my original posting was as much about the lack of replanting as the original clearcutting.  No disrespect to the Rodewalds, but most responsible forestry now involves smaller clear cuts and extensive replanting. Sustainable forestry like this is even practised by many private timber firms now, and I have no problems with that approach.  I saw little of that going on at Shawnee, however.  Clear-cutting of that size & intensity on those slopes is little more than industrial forestry, designed to maximize timber harvest in the minimal amount of time.  This extensive fragmentation of the forest flies in the face of many, many studies emphasizing the value of large, contiguous forest blocks for healthy forest bird populations.  The forest cuts could have been smaller & spread over a wider area, but the decisions look like they were made on the basis of harvest economics, not forest science, which will leave us a diminished forest, for humans & birds, for many generations.

To suggest that this type of clear-cutting introduces new 'scarce' habitat is dis-ingenious at best.   There's no shortage of scrub habitat outside of the State Forest, and even in the Forest where ice-falls were cleared several years ago.  What is in short supply is old growth oak-hickory forest.  If the companies and the state were so concerned about this habitat, I would expect to see replanting of oak & hickory saplings or nuts to facilitate recovery of the habitat.  Without this and other re-planting measures, the bare slopes are likely to become either an eroded wasteland or a scrub of ashes & invasive species, steps that will slow or stop the succession to mature natural forest.  I recall a comment about oak caterpillars being excellent bird food.  I doubt the same can be said for emerald ash borers or the few insects that feed on honeysuckle, ailanthus, callery pear, & pauwlonia.  Natural succession is difficult enough on these thin soils, but with the new added complication of invasives, it's probably impossible without human management.  By not managing the reforestation, the state & its contractors have demonstrated, in the clearest way possible, that they aren't thinking about the long-term environmental health of the area.  That should concern all of us.

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