The Options
“A whole suite of species, including lynx and snowshoe hare, benefit by clearcutting,” says Wally Jakubas, Maine state biologist and IFW’s Mammal Group leader. “But it has drawn such an outcry that we may well have lost an important tool in managing wildlife.”

Experts who support clearcutting point out that a forest is a mosaic of different patches of trees varying in age, size, and other criteria that generate habitat for different species. Before European settlement, cyclical wildfires and insect epidemics cut large holes in the boreal forests of the Northeast, fostering snowshoe hare and Canada lynx populations. Modern forestry practices have since squelched most wildfires and tried to eradicate insect blights, while development has created small, fragmented islands of open space that are not large enough to support predatory species.

The Cooperative Forestry Research Unit in Maine, one of the oldest industry and university forest research cooperatives in the country, is collecting data that will likely help direct future forest management practices. Preliminary research confirms that there are more hares per acre on areas clearcut 19 to 32 years earlier than on areas where only partial timber harvesting has occurred or established forests remain intact. Researchers say still more needs to be done to determine whether partially harvested lands can support healthy, smaller communities of hares and lynx.

Landowners need to take a balanced approach, according to Mark McCullough, endangered species specialist with the FWS. “Fish and Wildlife officials don’t propose that we go back to huge clearcuts, but creating a holistic system is critical. Before clearing large areas, loggers need to map headstreams, vernal pools, and other sensitive areas.”

 In 2005, the federal FWS proposed that 10,633 square miles of northern Maine—nearly one-third of the state—be designated as critical habitat for the Canada lynx. Under such a designation, a property owner requesting federal money or a federal land-use permit (to disturb wetlands, for example) would have his or her plans reviewed for potential impact on lynx habitat. Any project that jeopardized lynx habitat might face restrictions to limit the impact.

The FWS altered its proposal in 2006, exempting all land used for commercial forestry, as well as state and tribal land or properties that already had lynx management plans in place. That revised ruling included all of the land in Maine under consideration. Amid growing suspicion that the change was motivated more by politics than by science, the U.S. Interior Department recently decided to review the decision. Several environmental groups, including Defenders of Wildlife, have threatened legal action if the department does not take a science-based approach in re-evaluating what land has been designated critical habitat and whether more should be designated. A ruling by the department is expected by summer 2008.

The Balance
McCullough suggests that the real solution to protecting lynx habitat lies in the ability of the FWS, the University of Maine, and environmental groups to work cooperatively with industrial forest landowners in northwestern Maine. About 15 landowners own roughly 90 percent of the land initially proposed for critical habitat protection. He says, “these private landowners hold the future for Canada lynx.”
 
Maine is one of three states involved in the federally funded Healthy Forest Reserve Program, which provides financial compensation to landowners who agree to forgo development or certain land use activities to instead manage their lands in ways that benefit endangered or threatened wildlife. One million dollars has been distributed over the past two years to help protect lynx and pine marten, as well as the overall biodiversity in northern Maine.

Lynx have been spotted on AMC’s 37,000-acre Katahdin Iron Works property. The southern part of the property around Caribou Bog could become an attractive denning site for the cats in the near term. Young, low-elevation softwood stands created by clearcuts 20 to 30 years ago dominate the area and will take another two to three decades to mature. A majority of the timber stands on the property will be allowed to mature beyond that timeframe, providing a stable ecosystem for several other species but one that will not likely support a large number of denning cats. Still, the entire property, and the 28,000-acre Roach Pond tract if it is successfully conserved, will remain a critical wildlife corridor for the wide-roaming lynx to search out new territories.
 
Susan Morse, a wildlife ecologist, professional tracker, and founder of Keeping Track, a nonprofit based in Vermont, says she has “a healthy respect for the degree to which habitats and animals can be extraordinarily flexible and resilient and adaptive.” But, she says, the next 10 years will be critical in figuring out how to manage public and private lands with wildlife in mind. “For lynx populations to persist and be healthy they need to be able to move over unfragmented landscape.”

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