Plum Creek works to improve deer wintering areas|

Plum Creek photo  REST AREA – Pictured is part of Plum Creek’s deer wintering area in Beaver Cove last March. Selective cutting provides a rest area for the deer while leaving a canopy to cut down on the snow depth in the wintering area.

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

 BEAVER COVE – Plum Creek, the state’s largest landowner, has been working with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife since 2007 to manage deer wintering areas on 31,000 acres of the company’s land.

 In the Moosehead Lake region, work is currently underway to thin out a 4,000-acre tract in Beaver Cove and Lily Bay Township from Prong Pond to South Brook, about six miles north of Greenville.

 “Some people have been wondering what’s going on up here,” said Ray Ary, Plum Creek’s senior wildlife biologist. “Basically, our harvest is part of a long-term plan to promote regeneration of certain species that provide cover for deer. In some cases, we’re providing a path to connect some yards that aren’t contiguous.”

 Plum Creek biologist Henning Stabins added that while a 4,000-acre parcel would seem difficult to manage on paper, the opposite is true. “It does take a lot of manpower, but the larger size allows some flexibility in moving the habitat around while maintaining connectivity,” Stabins said.

 Rocky Rockwell is one of the foresters involved in the logistics of the operation. “I’ve been working in this deeryard with (IF&W regional biologist) Doug Kane for 25 years, so we’ve got some history in the area,” he said. “Things we’ve done in the past have proven very successful.”

 Kane said that even though the last two winters have been tough on the local deer population, it seems to be rebounding. “They had a rough time in 2007-08 and 2008-09,” said Kane. “When you’re in this part of the whitetails’ range – from central Maine north – if you don’t have quality winter shelter, eventually the deer population will decrease dramatically.”

 Deer don’t go into hibernation in the winter, but primarily live off their fat reserves, explained Ary. The deer yards are primarily designed to provide shelter, but selective cutting also retains cedar, lichens and hemlock “which they like to nibble on. But we provide a canopy so they don’t have to plow through hip-deep snow,” he said.

 Deer habits can also be mysterious at times.

 IF&W, in collaboration with the University of Maine at Fort Kent, collared 10 deer with telemetry devices in the Beaver Cove area two years ago to track their movements. “About one out of five deer stayed in the area all the time,” Kane said. “One wandered all the way to our yard in Bowerbank and another was tracked close to Chesuncook.”

Observer photo/Mike Lange  MAPPING A PLAN – IF&W biologist Doug Kane, left, looks over a map of Plum Creek’s Beaver Cove deer wintering area with Plum Creek’s community affairs manager Mark Doty.

One doe wintered over in Beaver Cove, spent some time in Greenville and eventually wound up “30 air miles away in Sebec Lake and stayed down there for the next winter,” Kane said.

 Ary said that the tracking devices could answer some key questions. “Why are they bypassing other deer yards on their way back to this one? What’s so unique about the summer range? They’re crossing great forage areas on the way to it,” Ary said.

 Although the Beaver Cove acreage has been owned by timber companies since the late 1800s, there hadn’t been much harvesting for the past 70 years. The tract was purchased by Plum Creek from the Huber Corporation in 2005, some light clearcutting was done in 2008 and 2009 and selective cutting was completed in a 125-acre section in 2012.

 Color-coded maps used by Plum Creek and IF&W identify the areas that are slated to be cut over the next 90 years, Ary said.

 Rockwell said that the logging operations are designed to be “as less-intrusive as possible. We use the topography to work more downhill into the yard as opposed to pulling equipment uphill. It’s a little more work, but we felt that it was a better way to get in and out.”

 More information about the company’s woodlot management plans is posted at www.plumcreek.com.