Project Title: Hardwood Reforestation (FFS #R2EE*)

State: Texas

Initial Project Description: When early settlers wound their way to the vast expanse that became Texas, they cleared land, planted crops, and cut down trees to fashion homes. As they struggled to survive in isolated and often inhospitable areas, they relied on plentiful natural resources for food, water and shelter.

Flash forward a couple of hundred years to modern-day life in the Lone Star State, with booming metropolises, immense agricultural holdings, and a lifestyle that results in a greatly increased carbon footprint. Some natural resources that once seemed unlimited have shrunk to the point where they no longer sustain wildlife, such as bottomland hardwood forest in the Cypress and Sabine River Basins in the eastern edge of the state.

“This area has been impacted since settlement began, at least 150 years ago,” said Don Wilhelm, the Texas state coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. “Bottomland hardwood forests in the eastern third of the state have been greatly reduced due to a number of factors such as timbering, reservoir creation, and conversion to agricultural lands, pasturelands and pine plantations,” he added.

An astounding 95 percent of land in Texas is privately owned or controlled, so creating partnerships with private landowners is crucial to conservation efforts. One such effort, funded by $50,000 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), pairs private landowners with a bear conservation group to restore and enhance about 1,400 acres of bottomland hardwood forest.

“Hardwood forests provide a rich habitat for a variety of species, including the Louisiana black bear and 16 other species of animals and plants that have some sort of federal listing status under the Endangered Species Act,” Wilhelm said. “This project will enhance or restore habitat for bears, neotropical migratory birds and a host of other wildlife.”

Recovery Act funds were awarded to the Black Bear Conservation Coalition (BBCC), a diverse group of landowners, state and federal agency representatives, conservationists and citizens devoted to creating partnerships to restore and enhance habitat for the federally endangered black bear. The BBCC provided $25,000 in cooperative funding and will work with local landowners to replant bottomland hardwood trees including various oaks and pecan, hickory and mulberry trees. They also will eradicate invasive trees that threaten native habitat, such as the Chinese tallow tree and Chinese and Japanese privet shrubs.

“This is a great collaborative effort that will benefit a number of federal trust species in addition to black bears,” said Jeff Reid, a Service biologist in Texas. “In the past, bottomland hardwood forests extended expansively along the river basins of East Texas. These partnerships will help restore the forest.”

According to the BBCC, the decline of the Louisiana black bear population, currently estimated by biologists at 500 to 700 animals, is attributed to habitat loss, significant habitat alteration, reduction of the bear’s range, and unregulated harvesting. The bears’ habitat primarily is bottomland hardwood forests in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, which includes East Texas. Land drainage and clearing of the forests for agricultural purposes reduced the original 24 million acres of these forests to four million acres by 1980.

“The Service declared the Louisiana black bear, a subspecies of the American black bear, as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1992,” Wilhelm said. “Habitat restoration is extremely important, not only for bear recovery, but for the recovery of numerous other species as well. Recovery Act funding will allow this working partnership with the BBCC to continue to restore bottomland hardwood forests in East Texas.”

In addition, The Service will use Recovery Act funding to restore habitat on private lands at the Trinity River Basin. As part of the Service’s Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, Recovery Act funding as well as cooperative funding from the Trinity Basin Conservation Foundation (TBCF) will enhance more than 200 acres of wildlife habitat as part of the Trinity River Basin Environmental Restoration Initiative. The initiative focuses primarily on eight counties-Anderson, Ellis, Freestone, Henderson, Houston, Kaufman, Leon and Navarro-in the middle Trinity River Basin.

August 2011 Project Update: According to Paul Davidson, Executive Director of the Black Bear Conservation Coalition, record setting temperatures in Texas, and the West-Central states did not hurt the ongoing reforestation project:

“The seeds are doing their thing” he says, even though it’s been hot and dry, with record-setting heat and draught, the seeds have had enough moisture to grow – everything looks good.

Davidson goes on to say that the trees planted two year ago are “up to three to four feet” in height now, depending on species, and that the reforestation is coming back “faster than expected.”

He says that they have not done a large-scale count of bears in Texas, but describes the Louisiana Black Bear population as “growing steadily.”

The Coalition is now working on a subsequent project to plant 50,000 more trees.

News Release: Recovery Act Funding Creates Partnerships to Restore Trinity River Basin Habitat

Photos:

Bottomland hardwood forest at Trinity River Basin

Trinity River, south of the project site

Audio: Recovery Act Funds benefit the Louisiana Black Bear
Play the interview below to listen to Paul Davidson from the Black Bear Conservation Coalition discuss the reforestation projects benefiting the Louisiana Black Bear!

Read the transcript of the above interview.

*A portion of the Recovery Act funding awarded under FFS #R2EE will also be used to complete projects in the State of Oklahoma. For information on these projects, see the Partnerships Projects in the Southwest Region page.

Originally posted 05/10/2010
Page Completed 08/12/2011