By Steve Hagenbuch, Director, Green Mtn. Audubon Center
It is a cold mid-January day, and a group of seven students is huddled next to each other as they look over a trail map kiosk at the Green Mountain Audubon Center in Huntington. The sight of students participating in an activity at the Center is not a rare one. In fact over the past forty years more than 100,000 school students have utilized the 255-acre property as an outdoor classroom. What makes the above situation unique however is the level of study at which students are involved. These are graduate students from the University of Vermont’s well-known and highly regarded Field Naturalist and Ecological Planning programs. The students are, as Associate Director of the Field Naturalist program, Walter Poleman’s children would say, “the big kids.”
From January through May of this year I had the fortunate opportunity to work closely with the group as they pored over the landscape of the Green Mountain Audubon Center and neighboring Birds of Vermont Museum. The joint properties were recognized in May of 2004 as one of the newest Important Birds Areas (IBA) in the state. Their task was to assist Audubon Vermont and the Birds of Vermont Museum in the creation of an updated land management plan for the IBA. Specifically they developed a complete landscape inventory, assessment and set of recommendations designed to help both organizations meet their individual management goals. Over the course of the semester the students investigated the nooks and crannies of the area and explored all aspects of the properties, from geologic and cultural history, to wildlife and natural communities, to current use of the land. An impressive list of local resource professionals frequently joined the group to assist them in asking the right questions and guiding in the process of developing answers. The names, familiar to many Vermonters, included Sue Morse, Liz Thompson, Jane Dorney, Mike Snyder, Brett Engstrom and Dan Wells. University of Vermont professor Ian Worley provided each student with a unique aerial perspective of the landscape by offering his services as a pilot. I was repeatedly impressed by the commitment to the project that the students demonstrated. While the course for which this project was being conducted met just once a week, it was common to see at least one member of the group out at the Center 3-4 other times. The result of all the hard work is truly impressive. On May 11 a group of close to 30 members of the Green Mountain Audubon Center and Birds of Vermont Museum communities met at the Museum to receive a presentation. Included was a guided virtual tour of the IBA complete with the landscape’s “story”. Once everyone was familiar with the property, the group continued by sharing their recommendations as to how the two organizations might reach their respective land management objectives as well as considering the properties as one, unified Important Bird Area. At the conclusion of the presentation, Erin Talmage, the Museum’s liaison with the project, and I received a 200 + page document filled with resource inventories, assessments, recommendations, photos and maps.
As fabulous as the document is by itself, it certainly is not the end, but rather the means to an end. With its completion came the end of phase one of the Green Mountain Audubon Center’s land management planning process. The stage is now set for Center staff and a volunteer land management committee to take into consideration all of the information and recommendations provided by the graduate students and translate it into a working management plan. The plan will be crucial in informing specific stewardship activity to be conducted over the next 10 years. It is our hope that a written plan will be completed no later than a year from now.Our goal for land management is to maintain the diversity of natural community and habitat types for which the Center is known. The close proximity of hardwood forests, open fields, wetlands, beaver ponds, conifer forests and the Huntington River has made the Audubon Center a destination for individuals and groups alike for many years. Through management to maintain this diversity we are looking to continue to provide a means for environmental education, outdoor recreation, scientific research and wildlife habitat. A vision is in place that sees the Center as a demonstration site of management techniques that maintain biodiversity while recognizing the importance of a working Vermont landscape, such as maple sugaring.
I personally invite each of you to visit the Center over the upcoming days, weeks, months and years to share in its natural beauty.
Special thanks to the following UVM graduate students for all their hard work and dedication in helping Audubon and Birds of Vermont Museum with future planning efforts: Christopher Detwiller, Jesse Mohr, Lisa Passerello, Amanda Devine, Ryan Owens Abigail Hood, Charles Eiseman and … Walter Poleman, who facilitated, mentored and guided the group and made it all possible!
