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Another excuse not to manage state forests?

Ohiosam

*Supporting Member*
11,709
191
Mahoning Co.
LAURELVILLE, Ohio — Not many timber rattlesnakes are left in Ohio, and the ones that are still here reside on the state’s endangered-species list.

Two southern Ohio biologists are trying to help the rattlesnakes by studying their habitat and behavior but say state forestry officials are pushing for changes that could hamper their work and put the reptiles in even more peril.

The researchers use antennas to monitor snakes that have been injected with radio transmitters the size of a grain of rice. Once they locate snakes, they take detailed notes on their whereabouts and actions.

Rules proposed this year initially prohibited electronic monitoring of wild animals in state forests unless researchers got a special permit from the state. The state forestry division says the rule changes were meant to protect researchers.

But the Ohio Environmental Council, a statewide environmental group, said it seemed as though the state was trying to censor scientific research. The rules were sent back for revision after the council and the researchers — Denis Case and Rita Apanius — raised questions.

During testimony this year at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Nathan Johnson, an Ohio Environmental Council attorney, said the state was trying to obstruct research.

“It looks like there’s increased control being proposed over scientific inquiry and scientific publications,” Johnson testified. “And that just doesn’t look good.”

Natural Resources oversees the wildlife and forestry divisions.

Case spent nearly 30 years as a researcher with the Division of Wildlife. Apanius worked just as long as a biologist analyzing environmental risks for private companies. Both now volunteer their time to help other researchers.

Several times a week, they strap protective gaiters on their shins, grab an antenna and head into Tar Hollow, a 16,354-acre state forest in Hocking County about an hour south of Columbus.

Each time they find a tagged snake, they log its location and note such things as how far it was from its den, whether it was on the north or south side of a hill and whether it was in the sun or under a carpet of leaves.

That information is crucial to understanding how and where timber rattlesnakes move over time.

“We’re doing old-time, natural-history stuff — we’re just following the snakes, documenting their habitats, studying their behaviors,” Case said.

But rattlesnakes can pose problems for the forestry division, which sets controlled fires in state forests to promote oak and hickory growth and sells timber rights to logging companies.

The state can’t burn forest areas or allow logging where endangered species make their homes. That means the more areas where Case and Apanius find timber rattlesnakes, the fewer areas that can be burned or logged.

When they emerge from winter hibernation, timber rattlesnakes tend to hide beneath fallen trees or under layers of leaves on forest floors. Prescribed burns destroy both.

“These snakes are coming out to a moonscape,” Case said, adding that the loss results in making the rattlers vulnerable to predators and the cold.

Case and Apanius often work with Doug Wynn, a researcher who is permitted by the Department of Natural Resources to embed radio transmitters into snakes and monitor their whereabouts. Case and Apanius have followed those radio signals for nearly a decade in Tar Hollow.

Last year, the chief of the forestry division told Case and Apanius that they needed a special-use permit to continue monitoring the snakes. The researchers disagreed, and emails and letters sent between them and the state show an increasingly tense relationship.

At one point, the division official in charge of the prescribed-burn program wrote that all rattlesnake research surveys would be restricted to formal projects in Shawnee and Vinton state forests. That would have ended their work at Tar Hollow.

Forestry division chief Robert Boyles was not available for comment last week, but in a letter to Case, he wrote that locating snakes via radio frequencies could be considered harassing the reptiles.

Matt Eiselstein, a spokesman for ODNR, said the state allows dozens of researchers to work in state forests each year. He said they study plants, geology and wildlife, including timber rattlesnakes.

Eiselstein said the state had not updated rules regarding research in decades.

“We’re talking about researchers who might be in the field a lot longer, who’ve actually put equipment in the field,” Eiselstein said. “ODNR has a responsibility for managing these properties. It’s ODNR’s responsibility to know what’s going on there to help people who are researching.”

Natural Resources currently is working on the rule revisions with the Ohio Environmental Council.

larenschield@dispatch.com

http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...ogists-officials-are-rattled-over-snakes.html
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
I deal with similar stuff with my job. We can't cut trees from April 1 - November 15 due to the northern long-eared bat and the Indian brown bat. Both are going extinct not to due to habitat loss, but white nose blight. I'm always amazed at the BS that gets passed under the guise of "science"...
 

Jackalope

Dignitary Member
Staff member
38,841
260
I don't necessarily disagree with the ODNR in this case. These researchers are locating capturing and tagging endangered species. While on the surface this doesn't seem bad, I mean they're actually trying to help the animals. The reality is "good intentions " have no bearing on law. You do not have a permit, you do not have the Department of wildlife's blessing, you're by definition harassing endangered species. Personally I don't think an animal should be on an endangered species list when the 13 states south of you are polluted with them. But that's another topic.
 

jagermeister

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
18,061
223
Ohio
I don't necessarily disagree with the ODNR in this case. These researchers are locating capturing and tagging endangered species. While on the surface this doesn't seem bad, I mean they're actually trying to help the animals. The reality is "good intentions " have no bearing on law. You do not have a permit, you do not have the Department of wildlife's blessing, you're by definition harassing endangered species. Personally I don't think an animal should be on an endangered species list when the 13 states south of you are polluted with them. But that's another topic.
I totally agree with you.

Makes a lot of sense... Yea let's not burn or harvest timber, actions that would benefit hundreds of other species of flora and fauna, just so we don't kill a few fuggin rattlesnakes which are thicker than thieves to the south. Talk about stupid...
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
I totally agree with you.

Makes a lot of sense... Yea let's not burn or harvest timber, actions that would benefit hundreds of other species of flora and fauna, just so we don't kill a few fuggin rattlesnakes which are thicker than thieves to the south. Talk about stupid...

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