$250,000 in Improvements Underway in Arkansas’s Bearcat Hollow

First posted on 08-12-2010

Wildlife and outdoor enthusiasts in Arkansas will benefit from $250,000 worth of wildlife habitat improvements, made possible by a grant from the National Forest Foundation and funding from other project partners.

NFF awarded a grant worth $105,045 to the Bearcat Hollow stewardship project, which is underway in the Ozark National Forest in Newton, Searcy and Pope counties. Project partners and a stewardship project contributed the additional funds. This project lies at the heart of a larger Arkansas/Missouri Pine-Oak Woodlands Partnership, which covers a 350,000-acre corridor of public and private land in northern Arkansas.

Project partners include the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, National Wild Turkey Federation, USDA Forest Service, NFF, Arkansas Wildlife Federation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and The Ozarks Sportsmen Association.

The Pine-Oak Woodlands Partnership is a long-term project that will dramatically improve habitat diversity in a heavily-forested area of Arkansas where diversity is lacking, AGFC turkey program coordinator Mike Widner says. “Turkeys will benefit from creation of nesting and brood habitats, permanent water sources and improvements in mast-production,” Widner said. “Many other species, including grassland or early-successional birds and grazing or browsing animals such as deer and elk, will also benefit from restoration of these natural systems,” he added.

“Oak woodlands in this region have declined due to fire suppression in the early 1900s, and restoring these areas will be a huge undertaking,” said Dennis Daniel, NWTF director of conservation operations for the midsouth region. “The Bearcat Hollow project is an excellent example of how staff, volunteers and partners from multiple organizations can combine their resources to make greater improvements than what they could accomplish alone.”

Decades of fire suppression has caused woods to be overstocked with trees, resulting in quality oaks having to compete with other less desirable trees and underbrush for nutrients. When land management practices are implemented, oaks, which produce food and habitat for wildlife, will thrive.

Phase one of this two-phase project will restore pine and oak woodland habitats to benefit elk, wild turkeys, northern bobwhite quail, bald eagles, red-tailed hawks and songbirds including the indigo bunting. The Indiana bat, which is on the state’s list of threatened and endangered species, and the Whip-poor-will, a species of greatest conservation need in Arkansas, plus a host of other wildlife, will benefit from habitat improvements including:

* controlling invasive species on 206 acres
* treating 367 acres of mid-story trees with herbicide
* creating 104 acres of permanent wildlife openings
* developing nine woodland ponds
* thinning timber
* installing two access gates
* conducting prescribed burns
* removing 1 mile of old settlement fences
* mowing around 37.5 acres of existing fences

“The stewardship component played a key role in this project,” said Dave Wilson, NWTF director of stewardship services. “By clearing and selling timber that was damaged in an ice storm, we were able to remove unneeded trees and generate an additional $74,000 for the project through the timber sale.”

Lands cooperatively involved in the Arkansas/Missouri Pine-Oak Woodlands Partnership include Buffalo National River (National Park Service), Ozark-St. Francis National Forests (USDA Forest Service), Gene Rush Wildlife Management Area and the Gulf Mountain Wildlife Management Area (Arkansas Game and Fish Commission).

Phase one of the Bearcat Hollow project is slated to be complete in January of 2012.

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