Flying Squirrel Would Alter Parkway Views If Management Prescription Fails
Carolina Northern Flying Squirrel
The National Park Service (NPS) has prepared an environmental assessment (EA) for proposed vista management within high altitude Carolina Northern Flying Squirrel habitats along the Blue Ridge Parkway (BLRI) in North Carolina.
The project area is in four locations at Craggy Gardens, Mt. Pisgah, the Graveyard Fields area to Richland Balsam, and Waterrock Knob. The project proposal is to set forth a long-term management strategy that would best protect and preserve Carolina Northern Flying Squirrel (CNFS) while providing for an enjoyable visitor experience of traveling the BLRI. The EA analyzes three alternatives:
- No action (allowing the overlooks and vistas grow up without any periodic cutting),
- Historic management methods (cutting every 3 years according to rotating schedule as the Parkway currently prescribes)
- Developing management guidelines and mitigation objectives utilizing mechanical treatment techniques for each individual vista within potential CNFS habitat to satisfy National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and NPS Management Policies .
The Blue Ridge Parkway is proposing as its third and preferred alternative a very labor intensive approach whereas the landscape architect and resource manager for the Parkway will personally supervise the vista management. This assumes that these individuals will be on site when the cutting of these vistas actually occurs. These contracts will be more expensive as the prescription for these will be from on the ground instructions which would go some thing like this: “cut right here, yep, leave that tree; no, not that one — yes, it is ok to leave that one.”
This is not a model for any efficient and effective program of vista management that I have personally witnessed, the crew simply does there job with regard to exclusive plant species which are left standing. Every three years, presumably, this scene would be repeated and the decisions on the ground will be subjective in park manager’s verbal directions to cutting crews.
Currently, the Parkway does not have the staff to manage the preferred alternative. The preferred alternative states that “Biologists and Landscape Architects in the Resource Planning and Professional Services Division would be responsible for the vista management program with potential CNFS habitat and would determine which trees can be cut at each individual vista and any other mitigation measures that are needed.” The Blue Ridge Parkway does not have a traditional resident landscape architect who has the time commitment to give to this program. There are only two park biologists qualified to serve this requirement and their offices are not even in the districts where the program will be administered.
NPS Management Policies of 2006 has language which states that the Service must protect and strive to recover rare, threatened, or endangered species native to national park system units that are listed under (NEPA), and undertake management programs to inventory, monitor, and restore and maintain listed species’ habitats. It is the opinion of this author that continued vista clearing as prescribed in the Historical Management Method (Alternative 2) does not diminish habitat as the CNFS never had this area as habitat in the first place. NPS / BLRI listing of disadvantages in its 127 page document expresses its own self-doubt in stating that “cyclic maintenance of vistas could have an impact…” and that the “Park Service could be out of compliance…” This author contends that there is a big difference in “could” and “would.”
Documented studies (references are available) have shown that the rate of increase of visits to the Blue Ridge Parkway diminishes when Parkway views are compromised or lost. This factor has a direct impact on local tourism revenues.
The operating budget for the Blue Ridge Parkway has only increased one-half of one per cent since 1980. Funding for the National Park Service or the Blue Ridge Parkway is not expected to be increased significantly in the years ahead despite current funding initiatives. A quarter of the permanent work force of the Blue Ridge Parkway has been lost since 2002 and those vacancies still remain unfilled – including the positions of a landscape architect, community planner, and public information officer.
Another twenty-five per cent of the work force is eligible for retirement in the next four years. If the Park Service commits to its preferred alternative, it will more than likely find itself down the road unable to service the highly labor intensive management alternative, give up because it can’t keep up, and then completely abandon any vista clearing management program in the CNFS critical habitat areas. The originally conceived and designed historical views of the Blue Ridge Parkway would (I didn’t say could) be lost forever.
Responses are encouraged as the issues are multi-facetted. Individual questions can be responded to in postings.
Additional comments can be found here …
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2008/04/flying-squirrels-scenic-vistas-and-blue-ridge-parkway#comment-6003
…from Kurt Repanshek, editor
The Foundation Executive Director seems to favor Alternative 2 based primarily on budgetary grounds, a well-justified position given the fact that BLRI is still operating at 1980 budget levels. What businessperson could consider expanding a business which has received a 0.5% budget increase and only limited economic benefits from technology-based efficiencies since 1980? I’d be interested to hear his assessment of the EA if the NFS were to accompany its recommendation with sufficient and ongoing additional funding to accomplish Alternative 3. I’d also like to see a list of other important but unfunded BLRI projects weighted against the six NEPA Goals as in Table 1 of the EA.
In addition to deteriorating U.S. fiscal realities, climate change will present challenges that we can’t yet imagine. The EA notes that CNFS and spruce-fir forests are probably relicts from times of cooler climate. I assume that both will likely be driven to extinction or more northerly habitats in the not-so-distant future. Perhaps this reality should somehow be reflected in the NEPA Goals assessment, and in weighing CNFS preservation against other BLRI funding priorities.
The past 30 years have seen disgraceful declines in funding for public spaces, with corporate sponsorship, privatization, overworked staff and volunteers partially filling the gaps. Worse yet, we are now entering a time of budgetary challenges unequaled since the days when the BLRI was conceived. What does the future hold for public treasures like the BLRI?
Some possibilities:
1) We could have a well-funded “IBM Big Blue Ridge Parkway,” with advertisements at each overlook, laser-projected inside each tunnel, and broadcasted on satellite radio and TV into our SUV seatback displays.
2) We could encourage, enlist, and empower large numbers of volunteers, instructed and supervised by NPS professionals.
3) We could require public service duties of all citizens, especially providing every youth with a safe, positive-influence, life-changing and career-launching experience.
It’s probably no mystery which direction I favor and to which I will gladly contribute time and resources.
Our population seems to be well-supplied with bored people, actively seeking “entertainment.” We have massive industries providing all the entertainment we can afford. Our country now also provides incarceration for more than 2.3 million adults whose entertainment needs seem to lead them into dead ends. This “service” costs the U.S. more than $55 Billion each year*, a large part of which is to detain nonviolent criminals. Not that there’s any relationship, but the National Forest Service budget is about $5 Billion per year.**
I have a feeling that most youth would benefit from a year’s work in the forest, away from TVs, iPods, boomboxes and street violence. And it wouldn’t hurt us older folks to also help in whatever ways we each are able. It would be a massive project to implement, but might save us a lot of money and grief in the long run.
* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/02/28/ST2008022803016.html
** http://www.fs.fed.us/aboutus/budget/
I would recommend the Historic Management Method. The ratio of these vista areas to the total habitat of the CNFS has to be very insignificant. We’re talking about squirrels, for heaven’s sake. Nothing is more determined when wanting to go where they want to. This is a non-issue. Let’s not waste any more time and money on this debate. Thank you.
I do not actually know for a fact, as some will suppose, that these squirrels have “thousands of acres” available. I am not an expert and for all I know maybe these mentioned vistas are a major component of their habitat. I am all for views available and quite enjoy leisurely tours with these fascinating landscapes. I agree in principle with your recommendations.
It seems the real issue is improperly financed government which could jeopardize tourism dollars in its ineffectiveness. Where are Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt when you need them? Instead we have the war mongering, inept and corrupt Little King George who is all about developing for private interests all of our public lands and domains at the expense of all species of wildlife. This would be a non issue in many European nations and if one thinks clearly on this issue, it is an outrage to have such important agencies as yours under funded.
I would opt for allowing the areas to grow naturally and provide a safe haven for these fascinating friends instead of an underfunded and hopeless strategy being implemented, as your suggested possible outcome. If it is possible to maintain these vistas efficiently, and raise the money and public awareness necessary, without a doubt I would concur with the third option.
I fully agree and support the author’s assessment of continuing to insure the vistas by cutting the trees or foilage at and around turnouts and observation places past years. There will still be thousands of acres along the Pkwy for the squirels’ habitation.