Wilton man recognized for his work with Mother Nature
WILTON – Trail clearing and “beaver wrangling” are all in a day’s work for the land stewards with the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
Land stewards, considered “the eyes and ears of the forest society,” are the volunteers out there in the woods watching over the properties owned by the SPNHF, keeping an eye on who’s out there, noting how they treat the land and maintaining miles of trails.
Bart Hunter has been one of those watchers for 14 years, and was recently recognized by the society as its Volunteer of the Year, in part for his work in restoring the trails in the Heald Tract in southwest Wilton after the 2008 ice storm.
Right now on the tract, he said, “We are beaver wrangling. Beavers have moved into King Brook Reservoir (a flood control dam), and they keep blocking the stand pipe that regulates the water. We were given a choice of trapping out the beaver,” he said of the state Fish and Game Department.
Instead, Hunter visits the site once a week to clear out what the beaver had put in.
“It’s getting cold,” he said. “They’ll stop pretty soon.”
Great stewardship, Hunter. Maybe you might be interested in Mike’s DVD about beaver management, so you can save yourself a little time?
Not enough good news for one morning? This will cheer you immeasurably…
And by the way, what boss have you EVER worked for that would chose to be the last one out of the mine? You know all the CEO’s and CFO’s and VP’s in the US would have needed to get out first “to start the paperwork” or some such excuse…
