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HERNANDO CHAPTER |
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HERNANDO CHAPTER |
| JANUARY PROGRAM State Forest Lands Lecture by Vince Morris Article by Doris Bareiss |
| Vince, the Forester for Hernando county, gave a slide presentation
of state forest lands located in Citrus and Hernando counties. Included were wet
prairie, scrub, and sandhill ecosystems. The Withlacoochee State Forest includes the Citrus, Richloam, and Croom tracts as well as the latest acquisition, the Jumper Creek tract. Most of the Richloam tract is in Hernando County; a small portion lies in Pasco County. The Citrus tract, which is primarily managed for wildlife, needs corridors to connect with the Croom tract. Corridors of land linking existing wildlife habitats are needed to support populations of wide ranging animals, such as the black bear, which need large territories. The Annutteliga Hammock, located in Hernando and Citrus counties, is an important wildlife corridor. This project includes the most sandhill remaining outside public ownership in peninsular Florida. The Suncoast Parkway threatens to bisect the area and increase development pressure. The Division of Forestry has hired a full-time employee to eradicate pest plants on state forest lands. One of the worst is cogongrass, which follows disturbed site paths. Sandhill is an ecosystem not only of local, but global, importance. It is a critical ecosystem which is dying out. There is very little true sandhill left due to development, fire suppression, and other factors. Fire is necessary to keep sandhill healthy. A fungus that attacks longleaf pine in the grass stage, brown spot needle blight, is eliminated by fire. Without fire, trees such as oaks dominate and force out the longleaf. In a healthy ecosystem the needle fall from mature longleaf creates a fuel bed which, along with understory, allows fire to go through and complete the cycle of the pines and the wire grass. Indicators of a healthy ecosystem are the Sherman's fox squirrel and the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker that nests only in old growth pine forests where years of fires have reduced the growth of hardwoods. Longleaf pine has many endemic plants and animals. It exists in a relatively limited range, basically Florida, and in a limited portion of Florida - on the sand ridges. We have eliminated longleaf pine to a small percentage, approximately 3%, of what it was at the discovery of America. Not all longleaf likes sandhill; some of it is clay hill and some other flatwoods. One problem is due to small isolated tracts of sandhill which cannot be properly maintained by fire. It is hoped that in the future these tracts will be able to be connected. We should write letters to our state legislators and the Division of Forestry encouraging them to continue to properly manage these lands. We should also voice our support of Preservation 2000 continuing past the year 2000 by writing, phoning, or faxing to: Dr. Gregg Brock Fl. Dept. of Environmental Protection CARL, Project Director 3900 Commonwealth Blvd. MS 140 Tallahassee, FL 32399-3000 Phone (904) 487-1750 Fax (904) 922-6233 |
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