SWFSWG Land Management Field Trip Buckingham Trails and Telegraph Creek preserves, Lee County 10/26/2010

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1 SWFSWG Land Management Field Trip Buckingham Trails and Telegraph Creek preserves, Lee County 10/26/2010 Participants Last Name First Name Organization/Agency Name Abbreviation Balcer Natalie DEP NB Bradshaw Ken Hillsborough County KB Campion Marcus Manatee County MC Clark Roger Lee County RC Clements Tony DEP TC Edmondson Nancy Sarasota County NE Faulhaber Craig FWC CF Gandy Elizabeth DEP EG Gordon David Quest Ecology DG Greeno Laura Lee County LG Michel Eric Mosaic EM Olson Cathy Lee County CO Pavlina Brian Sarasota County BP Rickert Vance Mosaic VR Shattler Steve FWC SS Waller Lee Lee County LWa Wewerka Laura Lee County LWe Wilkie Kristen Collier County KW Overview of Lee County Conservation 20/20 Lee County Conservation 20/20 Program has 42 preserves ranging in size from 3 to 5,600 acres. The program has 5 biologists, each in charge of 4 5,000 acres. When a preserve is acquired, biologists spend a year learning about the property before writing a management plan. Buckingham Trails Preserve This 571 acre property was acquired in February 2008 and is next in line for a management plan. It is unknown when the last fire occurred prior to acquisition. Cattlemen are on annual or 3 year leases on the property. Cattlemen provide an extra set of eyes to look after the property, and they look after the fences as well. They rarely bring in hay, but tropical soda apple can be a problem when they do. Cattlemen do not currently help with treatment of exotic plants. EM: Some properties put exotic treatment in the cattle lease. A timber company will remove Melaleuca and Australian pines this dry season. A company will use the Melaleuca for mulch, and the rest will be sent to a local biofuel plant. They do not currently have a contractor lined up for Brazilian pepper. 1

2 Having a seasonal spray crew for exotics would be helpful. Site 1 Scrub The property contains approximately 160 acres that are considered scrub. There are no Florida scrub jays on the property, nor were they recorded in the statewide survey. The closest scrub jays are 6 7 miles away. Buckingham trails scrub had islands of palmettos and sparse oaks in a matrix of open sand. CO: The goal is natural community management for the scrub rather than specific management for scrub jays. CF: The acreage is too small to support a scrub jay population that is able to persist over the long term, unless there are other conservation lands with scrub close by. SS and LG: The area might be scrubbier than it was historically due to the ditches. CO: The property has gopher tortoises and possibly indigo snakes. LWe: They have not found rare plants here yet. KB: Has there been a lot of soil disturbance? LWa: Just from the ditches. CO: The cattle are at a low stocking rate. When cattle are pulled off, areas tend to grow back with Brazilian pepper. CF: Does that indicate that the soils are more alkaline than a typical scrub? SW Florida tends to have more alkaline soils. CO: They are not planning to log any pines. What are your plans for the cattle? CO: There is potential to use fencing to keep the cattle out of the scrub if necessary. LG: Lehigh used to have a lot of wetlands according to 1943 aerial photographs, but many ditches were placed in the area. LWa: Historically, the property was wetter. 2

3 KB: KB: NE: CO: KB: The area lacks herbaceous growth. If you wished to reduce the palmetto cover to promote other species, would this result in weedy species moving in? It might be necessary to enhance the area by seeding herbaceous native species, though this is expensive. Recommends keeping the cattle out of the scrub to reduce soil disturbance and increase herbaceous component. You can increase the percent cover of oaks shrubs by cutting taller oaks. They ll spread out when they re sprout. Suggests keeping cattle out of the scrub and using fire alone to restore the area rather than using mechanical treatment prior to fire. You may need to reduce palmetto coverage to encourage herbaceous species. Nancy Bissette (The Natives) could provide cost estimates for groundcover restoration. Mosaic also works on this sort of restoration. Use growing season burns when possible during the restoration. You may need several fires on shorter intervals to restore the scrub. For groundcover restoration, seeding is expensive. Perhaps you could do a pilot project to see what success you get. Then you could use the seed produced from the pilot plot to restore other areas. Do you have other scrub areas with seed sources? Perhaps you could allow groundcover restoration practitioners to collect seed there, and they could provide you with bags of seed in return. You may be surprised by what native species come up after you burn. Could this property eventually serve as a gopher tortoise recipient site? They haven t done a gopher tortoise survey yet. Keep some of the pines to provide fine fuels for burns. Pines will be good for providing fine fuels as long as scrub jays are not on site. What have people done on other properties that could be replicated here? Manatee County had a site in Parrish that was similar with bare ground, islands of vegetation, and not much herbaceous growth. They got the cattle out, then selectively burned the islands of vegetation that remained it took a lot of labor and fuel. Maybe the herbaceous growth will rebound if cattle are not allowed in. Cattle provide great benefit elsewhere on the property. The scrub doesn t provide much to the cattle now anyway. KB: There was a question about hunting hogs. CO: There is no hog hunting on the property. VR: Trapping hogs is often ineffective. Shooting hogs at night is the most effective means of control. Land managers can get a nuisance license and can then pay someone to shoot the hogs. Are there trails planned for the property? CO: Not yet, but they may have bike trails in the pasture. LG: What public use would be good for the scrub? Perhaps a mountain biking trail? KB: Hillsborough County had a biking trail in scrub, but the trails create mini firelines through disturbance. Keep bike trails on fire lines. KB: And monitor the area to make sure people aren t creating their own bike trails. LWa: The boundary is fenced, and they haven t noticed much fence jumping. CO: Cattlemen maintain the fence. Do you have any equipment like a Brown Tree Cutter? With a careful operator, you can restore areas one small piece at a time. 3

4 Site 2 Pasture The pasture appears to be fairly dry. Graze it, burn it, and let it be. Could you manage it as a hay field? That might be easier than having to deal with exotic plants. Depending on the hydrology, perhaps you could sod it and plant pine trees. You could use the revenue from the pine needles and sod to fund restoration. The pasture may not be suitable for sod, and the sod market has been going down. Spend your money on the natural areas, and put the pasture on the back burner. DG and KB agreed. LG: Should we burn it? Knows a land manager who burns his pasture annually for burrowing owls. But there s liability and cost to consider. KB: What about mowing once or twice per year? Pine trees could be a way to get revenue. You can eventually thin them to native density while making some money to fund other restoration. KB: Pine trees could work. After crown closure, there s minimal maintenance and you can harvest the straw. Once you burn the pasture, you can get a better idea of what was once there, such as stump holes from pines that were logged. Telegraph Creek Preserve The county got a gopher tortoise grant to put in fire lines and lower the oak canopy in 50 acres. They cut the big oaks in April. The cut oaks were collected and used for fire wood by local parks. The county did some rollercopping on site in May and plan to burn it in the dry season. There is still some fire line work to do. Prior to the rollerchopping, the palmettos were greater than head height. 4

5 The property is 1700 acres, and it is adjacent to Bob Jones Preserve (part of the old Babcock Ranch). Laura Wewerka manages the site and is working on a management plan. Florida scrub jays were seen on the southeast part of the property in 2003 but have not been seen since. West of the scrub is a large palmetto prairie that was burned every 1 2 years by the previous managers. Cattle are on site. The southeastern arm of the preserve has 35 acres of scrub, 98 acres of scrubby flatwoods, and 19 acres of xeric hammock. Most of this area was logged years ago. The site used to be wetter with fewer pines. The county sent letters to adjacent neighbors to let them know about the restoration, and they left some trees along the neighborhood boundary. Are there any species we re hurting when we manage scrub for conditions suitable for Florida scrub jays? CF: Scrub jays are considered an umbrella species because most scrub associate species do well under the same conditions that benefit scrub jays. Migratory birds benefit from hammocky areas. KB: Fox squirrels can use overgrown sandhill in some circumstances. CF: Panthers need tall vegetation for denning. The panther s primary prey, deer, should benefit from scrub restoration. Restoration brings browse back down to a level that deer can access, and restoration can lead to more herbaceous forage as well. Tall oaks produce a lot of acorns, but this is balanced by the fact that there are fewer individual oaks. Scrub dominated by intermediate sized oaks can maximize acorn production for deer and other wildlife. Benefiting deer benefits panthers, and restored scrub still provides horizontal cover for stalking prey. Restoring the scrub won t hurt panthers as long as there are still thicker areas along the creeks. Don t allow cows on areas that have just been burned. Keep them off for several months after a burn. CO: The cows are mainly north of the creek, mostly in the pastures. You may be able to burn the scrub on a southeast wind, burning into the creek (or backing off a soft line along the creek if you wish). The oaks along the creek are still quite tall, with tall palmettos underneath. LWe: RC: LG: The oaks adjacent to the creek are probably no more than years old. The palmetto is thick and really old, indicating that this area had a more open canopy and was not hammocky in the past. A really hot fire could top kill some of the oaks. Scrub jays move along river corridors. Keeping vegetation low in these corridors helps. You ll get more plant diversity if you open up the canopy. They tried a mulching head, but it took too long and created duff. They switched to using a roller chopper on a dozer. At Oscar Scherer State Park, they ve had success with having a meeting to show neighbors the burn plan. Suggested managing the scrub away from the creek, then getting a fire into the area around the creek to top kill some of the oaks. Herbicide some of the oaks? Fire alone should top kill the majority of them. Could there be one big burn in the scrub to get it restored? 5

6 LG: LG: CF: If you have the prairie burned and a few other areas are controlled, you could probably do it. MC agreed. It would be best to get it all restored at once before scrub jays start using the site. An aerial burn could be effective. It gets rid of the smoke quicker, takes less time, and you can drop the balls right onto palmetto clumps. Burn the prairie, then burn the scrub unit with a SE wind. Alternatively, you could create a wet line along the creek and burn with a W wind. SS agreed. The scrub restoration is off to a good start. 6