Dupont Forest’s Annual Legislative Report for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-2024 was released in October 2024. Here are some of the highlights.
Visitation
For a fourth year in row DuPont Forest attracted more than 1 million visitors. Nearly 200,000 people visited in July alone.
Public Safety
Despite high visitation numbers, public safety incidents at DuPont Forest have continued to decline since 2017. It is no coincidence the incident rates began their decline when DuPont Forest was awarded 3 law enforcement officer positions.
As reported in the annual report, “DSRF law enforcement agents and forest rangers provide routine patrols of the forest during normal operating hours and enforce forest rules when actionable violations are observed. Enforcement actions included issuing written and/or verbal warnings, citations and expulsions from the Forest. Most of these actions occur at High Falls, Triple Falls, Fawn Lake, and Hooker Falls, and primarily consisted of verbal warnings resulting in visitor compliance.”
Forest Management
In FY23-24 there were two timber harvests of damaged white pine.
The Flatwoods Unit located along Sky Valley Road, Flatwoods Trail, Farmhouse Trail, and Shoal Creek Trail contained white pines that were planted in the late 1950s in what was at the time an open pasture landscape. The white pines in this stand were experiencing a new insect and disease complex: white pine bast scale and a fungal pathogen called Caliciopsis pinea. The Flatwoods Unit harvest combined a shelterwood harvest interspersed with a series of small group selection cuts of varying size. The goals of this harvest technique are to regenerate the overmature monoculture of white pines into a different mix of species and create structural and age-class diversity within the Flatwoods Unit.
The Laurel Unit,located along Sky Valley Road between Frank Street and Pinnacle Mountain Road contains white pines that were planted in the mid to late 1960s in what was then an open pasture. The Laurel Unit timber harvest began during FY23-24 and is scheduled for completion in May 2025. This stand was also showing signs of disease, insect outbreak and excessive mortality, all of which were encouraged by the overcrowded condition of white pines that had been damaged in an ice storm.
The Laurel Unit harvest has been prescribed a traditional thinning and salvage harvest to remove storm damaged white pines in an area with high value green salamander habitat. The thinning, called a variable density thinning, will remove about 50% of the white pines while retaining oaks and other hardwoods with a no-cut buffer and a 20-30% removal buffer around the green salamander habitat. The goals of the Laurel Unit timber harvest are to restore the overall health and vigor of the stand, enhance its structural diversity, increase the balance of hardwood species and improve wildlife habitat across the stand.
Forest Meadow Restorations
During FY23-24, the DSRF forest management program began converting approximately 12 acres of fields dominated by nonnative grass species, to meadows composed of native warm season grasses and pollinator friendly wildflowers. The meadows are located along the airstrip and in a portion of the open areas adjacent to the Guion Farm Access Area.
The meadow restoration project promotes native pollinator species such as bees and butterflies as well as provides habitat for songbirds and various other animals. The plants and animals that will flourish in the restored meadows will, in turn, support a healthier and more biodiverse ecosystem in the adjacent woodlands. In addition, the meadow restoration projects will allow visitors to see a rarely observed suite of species and habitat in the mountains.
Prescribed Burns
In FY23-24, the DuPont Forest staff doubled the number of acres treated the previous year and achieved an all time record for the most acres burned in a 12 month period. The prescribed burns took place on:
- Big Rock
- Bridal Veil Falls Road / Conservation Road fields
- Burnt Mountain
- Guion Farm north field
- Joanna MountainNW
- Lake Julia dam and Spillway field
- Little Grassy Mountain / Grassy Dam
Get all the details from the report here.