Mohican State Park and Forest in Ashland County is well known to
birders. The river gorge where the eastern hemlocks are has Canada and
magnolia warblers, among other warblers, veeries and hermit thrushes and
occasionally winter wrens.
     The hemlock trees will be under attack by a nonnative insect called
the woolly adelgid. This insect has killed hundreds of acres of hemlock
trees in North Carolina. A species of beetle is experimentally being used
to eradicate the woolly adelgid. It appears the beetle will not prevent the
destruction of hemlocks at Mohican by wooly adelgid. This nonnative insect
is currently at Hocking Hills Ohio. It is spread by wind, birds,
horticultural plants and campers.
     The colder winters at Mohican as opposed to further south, at least
before climate change, may slow down the wooly adelgid. No one knows for
sure. Chemicals can kill the pest but this remedy is unlikely because of
the cost and its lethal effects on invertebrates, etc.
     When the eastern hemlocks are gone at Mohican we will loose an ecology
somewhat like that of the Canadian boreal forests. No longer will Mohican's
"specialty" birds be seen in summer.
     It will be a sad day when Mohican's hemlocks are gone.So get to
Mohican and enjoy what we may not have a few decades from now.
     John Herman

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