Wildlife Habitat Conservation Is On Tap In Burke
“I’m not just talking about doing this forthe sake of the bears.”
— Jens Hilke, Vermont Fish and Wildlife department
By Amy Ash Nixon
Staff Writer
BURKE — Planning the town’s future, which includes human development at Burke Mountain and in other locations in town, around the needs of wildlife is something town officials are looking at carefully.
Members of the Burke Conservation Commission and Burke Planning Commission attended a natural
resources workshop at which they heard from Jens Hilke, a Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department conservation planning biologist.
“I’m not just talking about doing this for the sake of the bears,” saidHilke, talking about the importance of leaving large tracts of contiguous open space in town for wildlife
habitat. “I’m talking about doing this for our own sake.”
Unlike some parts of Canada, where the government is building overpasses for animals to move across human development, including highways, Hilke said Burke and the Northeast Kingdom are relatively
unspoiled and the focus needs to be on is “maintaining something we already do … we need to maintain
this network that we have.”
Values shared by the people inhabiting the town, when talked about, tend to find common ground that center around the unspoiled nature of the region, said Hilke.
“What do you love about your town? Why you live here … we don’t talk about that enough,” he said. “When we do, we start to realize how much commonality there is.“
People want to see special areas saved for recreational enjoyment, for hunting and biking, and hiking,
Hilke said. Looking at the community and its open space as a whole can help to begin what he called “a
goal setting process.” “What towns people want is a great starting point,” he said. Hilke said there is “an
incredible amount of data that’s out there – vast amounts of data at the statewide scale – made for all of
Vermont” for planning purposes. To protect habitat and open space, there are both regulatory and non-regulatory tools at the town’s disposal, he said.
Burke Planning Commission Chairman Al Duey said wildlife planning was recommended by Northeastern Vermont Development Association. The work is designed to help the planning commission learn about options for protecting the town’s natural resources. Duey said protecting Burke’s natural resources is usually one of the top concerns at planning meetings within the community and from community surveys.
“It was suggested that the planning commission and conservation commission have a joint meeting to
determine what could be done to identify and map Burke’s natural elements, such as contiguous and connecting wildlife habitats, wetlands, vernal pools, rare and threatened species, mast stands, deer wintering areas, various animal habitats and early succession forests,” Duey said. “Hopefully, such a meeting can be scheduled soon.
“Much of the collection of this information could be accomplished with community volunteers with possible assistance from an experienced professional,” he said “The information would be used to help with future land use planning.”
“The more you isolate and fragment a habitat block, the fewer species you’re going to have,” Hilke said. The NEK has the most undevelopedland in Vermont, some153,000 acres, he said. “These aremassive forest blocks. These are thebiggest forest blocks in Vermont …these house an incredible amount ofwildlife diversity – species with bighome ranges to move around.
“There is a lot of biological diversityin these blocks,” hesaid, pointing to maps ofthe state and the NEK.“The blocks, as wemove west, drop dramaticallyin size,” Hilke said.“We should be askingourselves, are theseblocks completely isolated? Closertogether means it’s more likely thatwildlife are moving from block toblock – even though bears require ahuge amount of acreage or bob cat,they can utilize multiple blocks ifwe haven’t completely isolatedthem … we can have small blocksas long as they remain connected tothese bigger blocks.”
Black bear need 10 to 20,000acres, moose 1,280 to 12,800 acres,river otter 15 to 30 linear miles ofstream, according to Hilke. Theymove around at different times ofthe year to get what they need tosurvive, he said.
Humans can help by installingculverts that permit wildlife – fromfish to rodents and other species – to
move through the water, said Hilke.He said climate change also is occurring,and impacting species in
Vermont.
There is a project Vermont is involvedin to work on inter-statewildlife habitat conservation withNew Hampshire, Maine and NewYork, as well as provinces inCanada, Hilke said.“Connectivity is the key to maintainingthese populations,” he said.“Your town is important from thestandpoint of regional habitat connectivity,not only for the reasonsyou love it, but also for the larger[habitat] connectivity reasons.”