CONSERVATION COMMISSION
MINUTES OF June 7, 2007
Present: Chris Giordano (Chairperson), Judy Jervis, Sheila Johannesen, Michele Tingley, Jason Holder.
Also Present: Dave Knight, Betsy Sanders, and Emily Brunkhurst.
The
meeting opened at 7:00 and was televised.
This
was a Wildlife Action Plan workshop with Emily Brunkhurst, a conservation biologist
with the NH Fish and Game Department.
She
began by explaining what the Action Plan is about, what the Fish and Game
Department has done with mapping, what the maps mean, how they can be used, and
then said we’d look at how
She
mentioned she had also looked over the Forest Management Plan (FMP)and the
proposed Conservation Easement and had some suggestions about both.
The
Wildlife Action Plan (WAP) was the result of two years of intensive study by
the Fish and Game Department and many partners as a comprehensive look at all
wildlife in
The
plan entails all of these in the context of species, habitats, and landscapes:
- ID wildlife and
habitats at risk
- Mapping
- Wildlife and habitat
conditions
- Risk assessment
- Conservation strategies
- Research and inventory
needs
- Monitoring
While
doing the action plan they were able to identify 123 species that, while all
don’t merit being on the endangered species list, some need to be looked at
more closely. They of course had to know
where these species are and the conditions in which they live. This was not just in the wild, but all over
the state since there is no area that does not have wildlife in it
somewhere. They also had to assess the
problems faced by wildlife, particularly in the southern part of the state
where a lot of development is happening.
Now that they have the information, they need to figure out what to do
with it and then monitor how it’s going; to see if they’re successful in their
implementation of strategies.
Ms.
Brunkhurst described five problems:
- habitat loss
(degradation, conversion and fragmentation)
- impacts of roads
- invasive exotic species
- pollution and
sedimentation
- climate change
In
describing the habitat loss, she explained that it’s more than just
development. She said that there are
more forests and fewer grass lands and shrubby areas than before. Also, there is so much forestry in the state,
but it’s not the natural type of forest that was there before, thus creating a
habitat for different animals.
Different
strategies that she explained are as follows:
- Conservation planning
- Intra-agency
coordination and policy: working with other agencies such as the
department of environmental services as well as the department of
transportation. She gave the
example of a culvert needing to be installed correctly to allow fish and
other aquatic animals to be able to pass through.
- Education, information
and technical guidance
- Habitat management
- Land protection
- Landowner incentives:
this is critical as most land is privately owned. If we want them to keep their land as a
habitat for wildlife, we need to help them to do that.
- Local regulation and
policy
- Population management:
working directly with species.
- Research
- Environmental review:
the “last gasp.” They hope that if
all other things that they do seriously reduces the amount of
environmental review they have to do.
The
hope is that everyone will have habitat conservation in everybody’s open space.
Land
management strategies she mentioned are:
- Protect
riparian/shoreland habitat and other wildlife corridors
- Protect unfragmented
blocks and other key wildlife habitats
- Generate early
successional and young forest habitats: the grasslands and shrublands
- Restore and maintain
late-successional forest: commercial forestry aims toward letting a tree
grow so long, until it’s big and still has strong wood, and then take it
out, but some species need older trees that are starting to rot and some
species just need bigger trees.
- Develop and implement a
terrestrial invasive species control program
She
explained how species don’t use just one habitat; they cross-over habitats
making a mosaic of needed habitats. What
the plan has done is pull together a profile of the areas of greatest
conservation need. The profiles include:
- Species description
- Status
- Distribution and
abundance
- Known and potential
habitats
- Protection status
- Threats
- Research and inventory
needs
- Conservation management
needs
- Bibliography
She
used the wood turtle as an example and showed a state map with each town
outlined. She indicated that next to the
cluster of towns in which the box turtle has been spotted, it’s likely that it
can also be found in towns bordering, it just hasn’t been documented. It is their hope that all communities will
document species found within their borders.
She
explained that people like to use Global Positioning System these days. Those can be used to record where a certain
species is found. Either a photograph or
a good description can be taken, and then the data can be returned to the Fish
and Game Department where they are putting together an online database. They periodically look at the data, ensure
that the data is scientifically valid, and then the data is sent to the Master
Heritage Database. Mr. Knight asked if a
photograph of scat would be good enough, to which he was told as long as there
is something like a pen, pocketknife, or neighbor’s kids’ foot next to it for
scale.
Ms.
Brunkhurst explained that they also have 27 critical wildlife habitats, for
which they have profiles. She explained
cross-referencing a species profile with a habitat profile. The former tells what habitat a species is
in, the latter explains what species are in the habitat. Both are useful tools. She had printed copies of vernal pools
profiles, brought especially for Danville.
She
also explained a little more about what she thought of Danville’s FMP and
mapping. She had the opinion that
Danville has a nice area of vernal pools, the Great Meadows, etc, within the
conservation land. and that the area could be connected and expanded since
timber production is not the primary interest there.
She explained a couple of appendices to the
plan. Appendix C is the “natural
community crosswalks” or assemblages of plants and animals and appendix D is
“Species and Habitats.”
She showed how the state of NH has been mapped to indicate
different forest types: high-elevation spruce-fir, lowland spruce-fir, northern
hardwood-conifer, Appalachian oak-pine, and hemlock-hardwood-pine. They also were able to learn how a forest
grows; i.e., amount of light, precipitation, soil content, etc. She explained that you could be standing in
one area of the state and think it looks more like a northern hardwood-conifer
type, but the map says it should be a lowland spruce-fir. This would be because commercial forestry has
changed it (conversion) and if left alone, the forest would revert back to the
lowland spruce-fir.
She talked about the Appalachian oak-pine type of
forest which is found along the southern edge of the state and the Connecticut
Rivers. This is threatened because of
development but also because it’s natural regime is to have a big disturbance,
like a forest fire, once in a while. A
fire is not practical so other ways are needed to allow that type of forest to
cycle.
Mr. Knight noted that if the forestry management
plan stresses too much commercial forestry, trying to maximize the value, there
is a risk of actually changing the habitat for the animals that are already
there. Ms. Brunkhurst concurred that’s
exactly correct. She said the Forestry
Management Plan doesn’t really maximize timber production. It vacillates between the value of the wood
from a forestry perspective and the value from a conservation perspective. She suggested connecting preserves of land,
rather than having patches. She said
this can be easily done.
She explained that they also have mapped smaller
habitats, namely: pine barrens, grassland (mapped at >25 acres), rocky
ridges/talus slopes, cliffs, alpine, marsh and shrub wetlands, peatlands,
floodplain forests, saltmarshes, coastal islands, and dunes. She explained a little about these
habitats. She showed on a town scale a
map indicating wildlife habitat land cover.
She pointed out flood plains, peatlands, grasslands, marsh and shrub,
and different forest types, and pine barrens.
This can be used overlayed with the conservation to see if there are
particular habitats that you want to protect.
She explained that every place on that map has a pile of information
attached to it. She showed a slide
illustrating the codes attached to the hemlock hardwood pine habitat
layer. She explained the cross
referencing that can be done through GIS (Geographic Information Systems.) For example, the codes tell someone looking
at size, proximity to road, how much area is in conservation, how much is
buildable, cell towers, trail data, species richness, etc. All this information can be pulled together
to look at habitat condition.
She asked what if you wanted to know right now, what
the best land is. She then showed a
slide about habitat condition assessment with conditions based on biological,
landscape, and human influence parameters.
All these factors used differ based on type of habitat.
She talked about the habitat condition score which
is the sum of the mean percentile rank of biological factors, plus mean
percentile rank of landscape factors, plus the mean percentile rank of human
impact factors, then divided by 3. They
had to set some thresholds and spent a lot of time figuring this out. They decided to take the top 15% of forest
and the top 10% of everything else and this is what they consider the cream of
the crop. This combines all of the
habitats together, designates areas that are already in good shape, and this is
the focus of what should be kept that way.
She showed that there is more biodiversity in the
southern part of the state than in the northern part. She explained the two biological regions: one
is grouped by terrestrial features in ecoregional subsections and the other is
watershed groups. Speaking of this
biodiversity, she said the conservation scientists asked themselves about what
physical factors form biology. She said
these are geology, elevation, and climate, so if you want to compare things
that have those same physical features that influence what’s been able to grow
there, these are how that should be compared.
The watershed groups are done the same way, not just because they flow
together but how they are alike ecologically.
All this has been mapped across the state and is what’s being added to
what’s the highest ranking in regards to the habitat condition score.
She also explained supporting landscapes. For example, if you have a high quality
stream, you need to look at the upland conditions. So, if there is a community without high ranking
habitat, it doesn’t mean their area is unimportant. There may be an area not ranked high enough
but the score may be a tenth of a percent off.
Within the GIS, rankings can be reset for a more localized look to see
what should be highest ranking within the focus area.
Mr. Knight asked when and where someone can be
trained to use the GIS. UNH Coop
Extension does a lot of training and has a summer program which lasts a couple
of weeks with a section on using GIS data for planning. Mr. Knight also expressed some fear, stemming
from a prior experience that he may be told that some parcels of land are too
small to bother with trying to conserve.
He’s of the opinion that no parcel should be dismissed, as one can build
on the other. Ms. Brunkhurst said that
once we look at the Danville maps which she brought tonight, we’ll find there’s
much more out there.
She showed a map of Manchester and surrounding
communities, illustrating that even in more densely populated areas, there are
many areas of high ranking habitats.
She showed another map of conservation focus
areas. She explained that analyses to
define intact landscapes are: documented rare wildlife, landscape integrity,
landscape diversity, and minimum human influence. It is their hope that communities with these
areas ranking highly for conservation focus will really look at those closely
and try to keep the area conserved.
Mr. Knight asked if she considered active forestry
practice a human disturbance. She
answered, “Not necessarily.” She said it
depended on the forest type, the goals of forest management, and how it’s
done. She said forestry is fine, but
there may be different ways of doing it and/or may be parts of the forest to
avoid. She added she obviously wasn’t
talking about clear-cutting.
She explained that we can use the data in the WAP to
get started on the FMP just to compare the new data that wasn’t available when
the FMP was written. She said the
existing habitats as well as wildlife can be figured out and cross-referenced
with each other. Looking at the maps, you
can see what wildlife potentially could be found in a particular habitat.
She asked about the wildlife inventory that will
hopefully be done soon. She said that
the maps can all be layered or can be looked at one at a time if you just want
to see one particular feature.
She also explained that GIS allows greater use of
the information included with each habitat.
It allows local priorities to be included in planning and can add
additional information from the Natural Resources Inventory and other sources
of local knowledge.
She also put a plug into supporting the Fish and
Game Department. She said their funding
in dire straits and needs support whether by a direct donation, speaking to a
government official to elicit support, or buying a moose plate.
Ms. Brunkhurst had handouts for everyone to take and
she distributed maps of Danville and the surrounding area for everyone to study. Looking at the habitat map first, the town
forest was identified and she asked what habitat the great meadows were identified
as having. She explained that the maps
can be used when looking at individual development projects as well as
conservation planning. She said to the
north and west of the town forest are more higher ranking habitats but there
are also lots of supporting landscapes which make
She said on a local scale, we’d want to do another
ranking to see what might pop up as the next level.
Ms. Brunkhurst talked about conservation overlay
districts in which, if it’s set up correctly with the right kind of ordinance,
when the developer comes along and wants to develop, you calculate how many
houses can be built with the current zoning, then you get with the developer
and put together a plan where all those houses are clustered on the least
invasive for wildlife. Mr. Knight
explained how that was in place in Danville, was lost due to the abuse of one
developer, and then recently regained.
Ms. Brunkhurst said the trick to make them work is
to get them past the community first, which Danville has already done, but it
has to be fair to the landowner. Then to
get it to work for wildlife is to make sure the cluster is in the right place
on the land. She talked about the conservation
overlay district and the wildlife checklist and that’s where you do a
mini-inventory in which you identify where the most important water resources,
where the most important habitats for wildlife are, and whatever is left over,
becomes where the houses go. She
explained that developers actually like clusters because they have less
infrastructure. It can be economically
viable.
She said it’s important to have this work done
early, before the money is spent by the developer on engineering and such. She recommended having a pre-planning meeting
in which it can be explained what conservation is looking for, or what is
required, then the developer can come up with a plan that can be more easily
tweaked. Mr. Knight explained that
there’s an education issue in southern New Hampshire in which cluster
developments are seen as low-income and a city-residence. Jason expressed his opinion that this town
will need to be re-educated, that the town had gone through an experience that
tried to show a cluster development as an appealing non-citified neighborhood,
but was poorly represented. Mr. Knight
concurred. Ms. Brunkhurst explained
there certainly is a difference between clusters for affordable housing and
clusters for conservation.
She said the piece of the parcel that is undeveloped
land needs to have a permanent conservation easement put on it. Chris asked who would hold the
easements. She said it can be partnered
with a local land trust, but the trust would only agree to that if there’s a
single landowner. A neighborhood
association is not a single land owner and the reason trusts don’t like the
multiple owners is, who is to blame if there is a breach of the easement? Chris asked if someone could review the
town’s cluster ordinance. Ms. Brunkhurst
said to send it right to Jill Robinson.
Jason explained that it seemed to him Conservation
would get the land that couldn’t be built on and the developer would develop on
all the prime land and there needs to be a way to work together with the
builders to avoid that. Mr. Knight said
historically the town does a lousy job policing its own backyard. He said if there’s a third party in on the
easement the whole thing is reviewed periodically. Ms. Brunkhurst said in a real conservation
subdivision the buildings cover less than 50% of the area. The really good ones are 20% developed and
that’s where the pre-planning comes into play.
Important pieces can be identified and kept secure.
The department of environmental services is putting
together a document of model ordinances, but this is not yet available. Carolyn Russell would be the one to talk to
about this. They may be available by
early summer.
Chris asked if the maps can be made into overlays
that can be put over the maps hanging in the town hall. Ms. Brunkhurst said yes, there is a lot that
can be done with this data. Chris asked
how we’d get overlays and he was told the planning boards have the capability
of getting that. She said the maps can
be created, but to have the more interactive maps would be ideal since more can
be done and seen.
She said some landowners just haven’t thought of
conservation. Circumstances can change:
either they are getting older and their children aren’t interested in the
property or they see certain wildlife or stop seeing certain wildlife. These are things that can trigger someone to
think about conservation, either they can do a little different management or
go so far as an easement.
There are cost sharing programs. For example, the Fish and Game department has
one called the Small Grants Program, mostly habitat management for game
species, and a new program called the Landowner Incentive Program which is
specifically habitat management for rare species. Those requests for proposals go out in the
winter. It is a 50% matching program and
is either in-kind services or cash. The
cap has not been determined yet. The
requests for proposals for the easement program are probably coming out in July
with a 60 day window. This is a 50%
match with a $100K cap. For the
Landowner Program it has to be for an easement.
She asked that when we do the wildlife inventory we
send the data into Fish and Game. For
the Landowner Incentive Program and we are making a proposal to them, they look
in the natural heritage database to see if there are documented species and if
it’s in the database, we get extra points on our assessment. This only counts if there is proof that the
wildlife is there.
Chris asked for recommendations for someone to do
the wildlife inventory. He was answered
that there are a number of biologists out there who do that sort of work. She recommended asking someone before hand if
they’ve had training with the WAP and how it fits with the big picture. She also said that it should be written into
the contract that they send in the data to Heritage as there are some who send
in the data anyway and some who don’t.
She was asked about grants for natural resource
inventory and answered that she didn’t know of any at this time. She mentioned conservation license plate
funds in the town of Effington. She
mentioned that how often you update this inventory is dependent on the amount
of growth, but should be done when the master plan is redone, about every ten
years. This will help you identify what
areas might be most threatened and opportunities for where to encourage growth.
She mentioned transfer of development rights which
is actually very hard to do, but works well when it’s done correctly. Basically one part of the town is designated
as the conserved area and another as the high density area. The people in the conserved area sell their
development rights while not changing the underlying zoning. The problem with this is it becomes a marketing
issue and how it’s structurally done.
Caroline Russell would be the one to speak to more about this.
Ms. Brunkhurst mentioned that thinking about
conservation is very important because that’s what New Hampshire is all
about. There is more forestry than crop
or animal husbandry. That rural way of
life can be protected. Chris asked how
that can be incorporated into our plan.
She said to think about looking at local regulations which the
Rockingham Planning Commission can help with.
She also said to look at what might be done differently or what can be
done with a traditional easement.
Educating everyone is always important and working with landowners is
very important. Working with neighboring
towns is also beneficial.
Chris asked how this can help the board in trying to
connect wildlife corridors and future land purchases. Ms. Brunkhurst said to use the habitat maps
overlaid with the wildlife inventory to look at where the corridors actually
are. She said you want connections
between wetlands. Also different species
require different size corridors but the wider the better. Mr. Knight expressed the opinion that we
shouldn’t turn down small entities that are along the right path because one
niche can open up to another niche.
Ms. Brunkhurst mentioned that road crossings are
very difficult for wildlife, but once we have protected land, there are road
structures that help protect wildlife.
She said even a turtle sign makes some people aware of what might be on
the road and they slow down. Again
educating the public is very important.
Trails are important as well since it gets people seeing what’s out
there and gets people thinking about how to protect it.
Speaking of trails, Chris mentioned how all that
needs to be put on some sort of overlay map to show to the planning board how a
development should be laid out. Chris
asked about putting that into zoning. If
there is a pre-site design checklist, trails can be put on there. If the master plan has a section that shows
we’re working toward this corridor, then it’s easier in court to show we have
site plans and zoning support that. If
it stands on its own, it looks restrictive.
Chris said the master plan is updated continuously. He asked if the trail part would be part of
open space. Ms. Brunkhurst said it would
be part of that and part of recreation, since it’s good to be able to tie
sections of the master plan together, making it stronger.
Ms. Brunkhurst had looked at the FMP. She looked at the maps showing vernal pools
and wildlife habitat features and a map showing the forest stand. She also looked at proposed reserve and when
she compared these maps with another map that showed featured trees she felt
like these little reserve areas were chopped up more by the suggested management
area than they needed to be. She said
there are better ways of delineating the reserve areas. She made some suggestions: the area with a
cluster of vernal pools will tend to have more diversity, so tie it in with the
great meadow and keep the equipment out.
Forestry has a negative impact on vernal pools.
She suggested some changes to the easement language
parts that are more targeted toward rare species habitat management. She had a list of what Maine uses, and said
they are in the process of putting together some simple brochures of which, the
first four will be coming out in the next few months.
She said the FMP has recommendations on a sort of
sliding scale which allows for good public input but also leaves room for a
dichotomy of opinions. She strongly
recommended to really decide how much active forestry will be allowed. Perhaps making bigger reserve areas,
connecting the areas, and creating bigger set-backs from wetlands and vernal
pools would help. It was explained that
this document talks about making enough money to put something back into the
coffers of the town, which is different than just supporting the forest itself
and its normal maintenance. She read
through the document once and found it to vacillate between the forest making
money to the wildlife habitat. She said
it presents both at the same time and it’s something that we need to review.
She said trails need to be far enough away from
ponds that they are not disturbing the wildlife. She said even the best forest machinery used
the best way possible, disturbs the forest, simply because it is heavy. Some wildlife needs the leaf litter and duff
to live.
Jason asked about the age of the maps used in the
FMP. They are from 2002 and perhaps have
changed since then because of the beaver activity. The road being flooded was discussed. Ms. Brunkhurst asked the board, if the road
isn’t being used, what does it matter that it’s flooding. Chris mentioned the legal aspect of keeping
the road at invert level. Ms. Brunkhurst
mentioned that beaver piping does work if it’s installed properly. Mrs. Sanders mentioned that we now have 50
acres of water behind one beaver dam.
This has created another heron rookery.
Ms. Brunkhurst explained that a heron rookery only lasts as long as the
trees are standing and strong enough.
Rookeries are transient and therefore valuable because they only last a
small amount of time. Jason said our
rookery is over 30 years old but has decreased by about 75%.
Ms. Brunkhurst said the harvest buffers were 50’ for
vernal pools and 25’ for streams. She
said if the wildlife habitat is as strongly worded as it is in the plan, the buffers
should be bigger. Speaking of cutting in
the forest, she said that perhaps sections can be picked that will be cut. Chris asked if the FMP and the Easement can
be made to work together, which Ms. Brunkhurst said they can.
She read from the Easement that the first priority
is to preserve wildlife and the fifth reason is timber production. Then in “uses” the first one is forest
management activity and agriculture. The
forest management one is heavy on commercial activity. It talks a lot about using fungicides,
herbicides, insecticides, etc. which is not very good for wildlife and contrary
to the first priority. It should rather
talk about integrated pest management which allows those things, but as a last
resort.
Mr. Knight suggested doing a careful walk-through
paragraph by paragraph and include Audubon.
Ms. Brunkhurst said another problem with the FMP is
it doesn’t address invasive species. She
said one of the best practices is that machinery brought into the forest needs
to be properly cleaned off site because it could spread seeds from site to
site.
Chris mentioned trying to put together a trail
system with wildlife observation sites along the way. Ms. Brunkhurst mentioned getting Matt Tarr to
help. She also said that once the
wildlife inventory is done, some locations will be obvious. She mentioned that trails shouldn’t go
anywhere near heron rookeries. Mrs.
Sanders said there is one trail that is about 300’ from the rookery and asked
if that should be abandoned. Ms.
Brunkhurst said if the herons haven’t been bothered by it yet, it should be
okay, but signs should be posted that hikers should stay on the trails or the
herons will be disturbed and the hikers could indirectly kill the chicks. Chris said we could keep the current trail
but have the signs and an observation station at a safe distance. Ms. Brunkhurst said it’s very hard to get rid
of old trails but Jason suggested making a new trail even more inviting then
the other could become obsolete, especially if the new trail has an ice cream
stand by the observation station.
Ms. Brunkhurst said the Stewardship Plan should have
plants as well as animals focused on somewhere in there when it mentions
habitat management. Mrs. Sanders
expressed an interest in a fresh start to the Stewardship Plan, or at least get
a fresh look at it. Chris said 90% of
the work is done and it wouldn’t take many changes to have the plan be what it
should. It was mentioned that as long as
Mr. Moreno is cited, then the valuable content could be used to redo a
plan. Jason said that this is a good
start to working with other committees to write and implement plans.
Ms. Brunkhurst was asked if she could give a list of
names of people who have been trained with particular tools who would be able
to help Danville with projects. She said
to make sure we have a list of goals that we want to accomplish. She said to take a look at what is in the FMP
and refine and think about why we have reserves and how they fit on the
landscape. For example, a lot of time
was spent finding the oldest trees. This
area could then be what will have the old trees. Another goal would be connecting the public with
the wildlife. This would be done with
meandering trails in which one has to look at things. She would not necessarily hire a wetland
biologist to do the inventory unless they are well trained to inventory all
wildlife.
Ms. Brunkhurst was asked what size the setbacks
should be. She said it depends. She had a copy of management guidelines for
Maine and they have 100’ no cut and 400’ minor cut. Vernal pools are temperature sensitive and
have everything to do with shading.
Canopy cover and hydrology and soil compaction are factors effecting
vernal pools.
Mrs. Sanders said she’d like to start new, define
goals with wildlife as a primary goal, have someone understand that and do on
the ground assessment, have the town forest surveyed anew, and have Conservation
and Forestry work together. Ms.
Brunkhurst again said that if we hire someone, we first need to know what we
want to do.
Ms. Brunkhurst recommended that when the wildlife
inventory is done, to get the GIS in there as well.
Ms. Brunkhurst distributed CD’s about the WAP with a
section about data, supporting documents, and a section about habitat layers
with GIS maps and PDF’s of statewide maps.
We tentatively agreed to meet the 18th or
19th of July with the Forestry committee to come up with some goals.
More
information can be found at: http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Wildlife/wildlife_plan.htm
Judy
made a motion to adjourn the meeting and Sheila seconded. The motion passed and the meeting adjourned
at 10:00 pm.
*****Next
Meeting: June 21, 2007, at 7:30pm****
THESE MINUTES ARE NOT
PERMANENT RECORD AND ARE SUBJECT TO APPROVAL AT THE NEXT REGULARLY SCHEDULED
CONSERVATION COMMISSION MEETING, AT WHICH TIME, THE ABOVE MINUTES, AS CORRECTED,
BECOME PERMANENT.
Minutes
prepared by Janet S.