Show Forest Action Most wildlife stays in the forest for but has to go out to Food is in the clearings and cut shelter is in the and any animal must have AMERICAN Forest a non-profit organization providing information about the nation's says the principal limiting factor on wildlife population is food The explosion of plant growth that follows removal of a stand of mature trees triggers a boom in wildlife populations and makes the clearing the action in the THE natural history of most says has always been an ecology of disturbance-periodic clearing by fire followed by growth of new In modern man has reduced losses to fire and has substituted logging to remove old or mature followed by planting or seeding of new IN EITHER removal of the old trees draws back the curtain of land the flood of sunshine on the ground unleashes' the growth of shrubs and seedling This growth draws birds and deer and Predators such as coyotes and bobcats soon The balance of nature and the open area begins to swarm with animal and bird NATURE reproduces its creatures bountifully and maintains a constant pressure to fill up the wildlife-carrying capacity of a new food Pennsylvania Game News has reported that if one pair of field mice and bred unchecked for two their offspring laid end to end would stretch from New York to Los Angeles and back Plus 25 times around the And times to and from the And there would still be enough mice left over to scare all housewives in and feed their cats for a NOT likely to come to Only because natural factors such as food supply and predators put a lid n such Creation of an opening in the raises the lid on food sources and permits nature to strike a new balance between their food supply and their natural Deer also are and under ideal conditions one buck and five docs could increase lo more than animals in 10 A healthy deer needs a daily summer diet of a bushel to seven of green leaves and twigs and like amount of twigs and buds in Food supply becomes the eventual limiting THE MICE and along with rabbits and other plant in turn represent the food supply of meat-eating animals and constitute a limiting factor controlling rise of the predator It would seem that each species of animal and insect is trying to fill the earth with its own Given ideal unchecked conditions each THE Institute says since the breeding rate of wildlife is usually improving the habitat automatically permits more wildlife to Wildlife biologists examine large numbers of different kinds of game in the fall to determine their They report that from 60 to 80 percent of the quails pheasants and other small game are young of the current SINCE roughly two thirds of this population is only a few months old by fall and only one third over a year about two thirds of the fall population is destined to vanish within one through starvation of falling prey to American Forest Institute says maintaining a steady rate of cutting and in the forest is a means of maintaining wildlife populations in This makes for better management of game than nature's own haphazard clearing by sporadic forest MANY landowning companies in the forest industry are also taking special steps to protect and maintain sensitive wildlife especially for species of limited In both Crown and Gilchrist Timber for many years have protected rookery areas of the blue heron which nested on company The heron rookeries are Several including Weyerhaeuser and Boise Cascade have lands in areas frequented by bald eagles and have adopted policies to protect these EACH nesting as it is identified on company is preserved together with the stand of trees around it and all activity by man is banned in a wide buffer zone around the nesting grove during the nesting |