Select Timber Cutting

[Greg Massey]

what's your opinion on select timber cutting? How do you feel it affects your turkey population? Will turkeys still hang around this area if it was cut last June? A lot of the log skidder roads are greening up with grass etc.

[tracker vi]

That grass should attract birds and the tops will make good nesting areas .

[Hwd silvestris]

Depending on how hard it has been cut.  When cut too hard it allows too much sunlight on the forest floor therefore it gets super thick with underbrush and this will have a negative impact.  Generally speaking a first thinning on a pine plantation will produce positive results hands down.  Hwd select cut is kinda same principal.  If cut too hard it will have a negative affect.   
In short,  depending on circumstances. 
That's just my opinion. I'm no biologist but I'm a turkey hunting fanatic and I'm in the logging/timber/forestry industry. 


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[Greg Massey]

Depending on how hard it has been cut.  When cut too hard it allows too much sunlight on the forest floor therefore it gets super thick with underbrush and this will have a negative impact.  Generally speaking a first thinning on a pine plantation will produce positive results hands down.  Hwd select cut is kinda same principal.  If cut too hard it will have a negative affect.   
In short,  depending on circumstances. 
That's just my opinion. I'm no biologist but I'm a turkey hunting fanatic and I'm in the logging/timber/forestry industry. 


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Everything that was 18 inch or less, was left. Some of the bigger timber was left, just because it wasn't marketable.

[zeke632]

I not in favor of it. After the first year small saplings take over. When they leaf out you can't see. Then they grow into thickets that are miserable.  I think select cuts are one of several problems causing declining numbers.

[Happy]

Up here when they cut they take everything. It turns my stomach watching what they do. I am not against timbering in sections to break up the landscape, but these fellows are mowing down thousands of acres without a care. I have found turkeys like it the first year or two before it becomes a jungle. After it thickens up it becomes a nightmare that they don't seem to frequent much. Hard for them to roost where there aren't any trees.i bounce around yearly trying to find where they have pushed the turkeys and our population is starting to suffer from it.

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[Tom007]

I am not a forestry expert. Where I hunt in the big woods, they do selective harvesting. It has been done 2 times in 10 years. They did not over harvest, took out mostly the straight, sometimes dead timber. It was very selective. The logging trails became good food sources for the wildlife. It definitely helped out the property, it did create some thicker cover, but we need it due to the big woods canopy. Be safe,

[bbcoach]

I live in Eastern NC and hunt leased planted pines.  We see plenty of select cutting, clear cutting and replanting.  It has been my experience, farming pines is not detrimental to wildlife.  Thinning allows light to the forest floor creating habitat and food for All critters.  Clear cutting will move wildlife out for a very short time but with sunlight reaching the ground and rain, seeds germinate very quickly and new tender food growth happens within weeks.  Replanting normally happens within months of harvest and cover is provided quickly.  I can't comment on hardwood harvest but pine farming is a Great Tool for wildlife.   

[Fullfan]

I can testify first hand, I live on the family farm in NW/PA 398 acers.  Father took some timber out very close to where the birds have roosted for as long as I can remember, I'm 55.  The birds were so predictable and would fly down strut and feed, was a slam dunk for many years.  Since the timber was cut birds have vanished.  I would not recommend it.

[GobbleNut]

As in all such matters, each situation and the circumstances surrounding it can be different.  I live in the southwest where our Merriam's turkey habitat is mostly found in a "mixed coniferous forest type".  That is, a mix of pine/fir/spruce with a mixture of low-growing "browse" species underneath. 

I was fortunate enough (or unfortunate as it was) to personally witness what happens to an extremely healthy Merriam's turkey population when this forest type is aggressively managed for timber harvest.  I watched over a period of years as an unharvested forest with a truly fantastic turkey population was transformed into almost a barren wasteland practically devoid of wild turkeys. 

This timber operation was not true "clear cut" management.  Some trees were left, but the forest density went from what I would call "dense to moderately dense"  to what I would describe as "sparse tree cover". 

Quite honestly, I was shocked at the impact this logging had on the turkey population.  I would never have believed it, but the "proof is in the pudding" so they say.  This happened twenty-plus years ago, but the turkey population plummeted almost immediately when the logging was done,...and it has not recovered to this day. 

The bottom line for me is that, in this forest type, intensive logging definitely has a major impact on wild turkey numbers.  From what I personally saw with my own eyes, nobody will ever convince me that it does not.

[Dtrkyman]

Definitely area specific, I have seen turkeys weaving through green briar and multi floral rose thickets like rabbits in the Midwest, they love it and it provides great cover and feed.  Early spring those briars green up early and I have seen them in and out of it eating the tender young leaves.

Gobblenut any chance those birds moved?  Or was it too big an area? That dry climate is harsh!

[Southernson13]

Just want to address the use of the term "select cut". I hear people use this term often with no idea what it means. Some tlrefere to a thinning, first or second, on pines as a select cut. This is incorrect. The only thing select about thinning is the te operator select where the guy on the cutter picks out the worst trees in between rows to take out. A " Select cut" I'm it's most common reference has to do with old growth pines or hardwoods where you have a considerably low trees per acre. The primary time I reccomend a selective harvest is in old growth hardwoods. Taking out non mast producing species such as Poplar, gum, and  even in some instances archaic oaks and hickories that are preventing smaller trees from being producers. A select cut involves going in and specifically picking out 2-5 trees per acre with the intent of allowing more sunlight to reach the forest floor.

[Southernson13]

I not in favor of it. After the first year small saplings take over. When they leaf out you can't see. Then they grow into thickets that are miserable.  I think select cuts are one of several problems causing declining numbers.

Well sir you would be dead wrong. NWTF and QDMA have both adopted the same management principle that encourages selective cutting to promote game habitat. The problem is that many landowners, seemingly yourself included, don't continue the rest of the management. You cannot cause disturbance in a forest then just let it do what it does. A forest is like a toddler. It has to be watched and encouraged. The second part to selective thinning is that there be some form of midstory management. This management is accomplished with either burning or spraying with the former being promoted as the ideal option.

[GobbleNut]

Gobblenut any chance those birds moved?  Or was it too big an area? That dry climate is harsh!

I'm sure they moved out of the area when the logging was going on.  The problem is that they have never moved back into those areas since, although the logging has long been over.  There are still good numbers of birds in the areas outside of these logged areas, but there are literally miles of country that was covered up with turkeys prior to the logging that now are empty. 

Your comment about the dry climate is on target, as well.  One question I don't believe has been thoroughly contemplated in these southwestern forest types is the impact of logging practices on such things as soil moisture, run-off, aquifer recharge, and the associated surface water availability impacted by those.  However, in these same logged areas, artificial water sources have been installed (pipelines with water troughs) throughout for livestock.  Yet, the turkeys have not moved back in. 

Of course, the drying climate is no doubt part of the equation, as well, but the obvious, short-term, direct cause of these declines in turkey numbers appears to me to be a direct function of the logging practices.  For whatever reason, the change in the density of this coniferous forest type has altered the ability of wild turkeys to survive there. 

[zeke632]

I not in favor of it. After the first year small saplings take over. When they leaf out you can't see. Then they grow into thickets that are miserable.  I think select cuts are one of several problems causing declining numbers.

Well sir you would be dead wrong. NWTF and QDMA have both adopted the same management principle that encourages selective cutting to promote game habitat. The problem is that many landowners, seemingly yourself included, don't continue the rest of the management. You cannot cause disturbance in a forest then just let it do what it does. A forest is like a toddler. It has to be watched and encouraged. The second part to selective thinning is that there be some form of midstory management. This management is accomplished with either burning or spraying with the former being promoted as the ideal option.

I should have explained my opinion more thoroughly. The select cuts I refer to are on National Forest lands... places where turkeys flourished and are now gone. 
I agree with you 100% in how the land needs to be managed afterwards.  Those practices don't happen here. The USFS posts signs on several large tracts of land to be burned every year...sometimes the controlled burns happen, sometimes they don't. It's typically many many years between burns, if ever. Most signs stay up until they rot off. We have big checker board areas that are old growth, next to nothing more than huge briar thickets. 
I'm not a biologist nor a forestry expert. My opinion comes from what I have witnessed. And as I mentioned, I don't believe it is the only problem contributing to the problem of low turkey populations. But it's one of them...no doubt in mind