BRANCHING OUT Spring/Summer 2009 A newsletter of the Division of Forestry, Natural Resources, and Recreation at Paul Smith’s College
Scenes from the field knockout
. Surveying students
IN THIS ISSUe: FNRR field notes 2
. Arboriculture students with Dan Groves
Sustainability program considered
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New sawmill
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Faculty updates 3
? Forest
Scenes from the field
Tech students loading firewood for the FNRR CORE outreach program
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Fisheries & Wildlife update 4 . Prof. Joe Dadey (kneeling, front) with students at the summit of Mt. Washington earlier this year. > Boiling in spring 2008
Fisheries and Wildlife Science program hosted a visit by the president of The Wildlife Society, Dan Svedarsky. FWS students took Dr. Svedarsky on a tour of Smitty Creek and an old growth stand, benefited from his seminar, and enjoyed dinner with him. The rest of the Fisheries and Wildlife Science seminars were filled by candidates for candidates for the new FWS faculty position. The college’s student chapter of The Wildlife Society was busy during fall 2009. They assisted the New York State Deparment of Environmental Conservation with the deer survey in northern Franklin County, and Vermont Game and Fish and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the moose check station in Vermont. They attended the national meeting of The Wildlife Society where they presented a paper on their activities, competed in the quiz bowl, and participated in activities such as the professional/student mixer.
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his is the first in a series of periodic newsletters that will update our alums and others about what we’re up to in the Division of Forestry, Natural Resources, and Recreation. I’ve been asked to provide a few words about my background, so here goes: I’m back at Paul Smith’s College as dean after finishing a Ph.D. in 1993 and having most recently been a tenured forest science
faculty at the University of Maine and then at Laval University in Quebec. I was a forestry instructor here at Paul Smith’s from 1985-1990, before which I was a full-time logger and forester in New Hampshire and Vermont for several years. In 2004, I was a Senior Fulbright Scholar posted at Tribhuvan University’s Institute of Forestry in Pokhara, Nepal, where I taught and conducted
New Center for Adirondack Biodiversity
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Fisheries The and Wildlife – what’s new?
Greetings from Paul Smith’s!
aul Smith’s College has launched the Center for Adirondack Biodiversity, an umbrella organization for environmental and social research being done across the park. Dr. David Patrick, a wildlife ecologist, has been named the center’s executive director. The center will collaborate on research into the breadth of plant and animal life in the Adirondacks, as well as help the many groups focusing on ecological and social sustainabil-
ity in the park understand what each is doing. Before arriving at Paul Smith’s, Patrick had done postdoctoral research at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science & Forestry. He earned a doctorate in wildlife ecology from the University of Maine in 2007. Patrick’s research interests include conservation and population biology and community-based approaches to conservation.
FNRR students get to the CORe of renewable energy and community outreach Working with the Town of Brighton Food Pantry to identify needy families, the Timber Harvesting class, under FNRR’s Community Outreach through Renewable Energy (CORE) Project, fells, skids, splits and delivers firewood to help heat local homes. Timber Harvesting students helped several needy families last fall and look forward to continuing their relationship with the Brighton Food Pantry to become a more meaningful part of the local community.
research in community forestry and silviculture. I hope that you find this newsletter informative. All the best,
Andrew Egan, Ph.D. (aegan@paulsmiths.edu)
Dr. David Patrick
FNRR FIeLD NOTeS
FNRR FACULTy UPDATeS
? Paul Smith’s forestry students
won the Quiz Bowl at the N.Y./New England Society of American Foresters meeting last spring.
? Prof. Corey Laxson was an author on the paper “Land use designation and vegetation community structure in the Adirondack uplands (New York, USA),” published online in Applied Vegetation Science.
? Arboriculture students Zach Witkop and Hannah O’Connor received Davey Grants for $1,000.
? Prof. Randall Swanson received the Scholar Award from the New York State Arborists Association at the fall meeting in Poughkeepsie.
? Under the leadership of Dr. Karen
Boldis and Prof. Joe Dadey, our RATE students have recently completed two successful expeditions: to Siberia last August and Belize/Guatemala last January.
? Prof. Brett McLeod served as the
? Our 1,500-tap sugar bush is now certified organic.
A welder prepares the operator’s cab at the college’s sawmill, which received a $200,000 makeover this summer.
? The Urban Tree Management
Sawmill – Down but not out!
(URTM) program has changed its name to Arboriculture and Landscape Management. In addition, the program has just received a 1996 F600 Chip Truck, donated by the Davey Tree Expert Company. ? We are now offering several hard skill classes as part of the RATE program, including whitewater canoeing and kayaking, rock and ice climbing, and free-heel skiing. ? Prof. Randall Swanson attended
the Empire State Green Industry Conference held in January in Rochester. Three current students and six alumni of the program were also in attendance.
Looking to the future – Proposed program in sustainability studies
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he Division of Forestry, Natural Retions, communities) related to aspects of sources and Recreation has proposed sustainability, including: green building, a new B.S. program in sustainability recycling and waste reduction, alternastudies that will help prepare students to: tive energy and energy efficiency, local X Integrate the political, social, and sustainable agriculture and forestry. economic, Proposed new technological, courses include: and ecological X Ecological dimensions of foundations of conservation sustainability and resource X Sustainsustainability to able commumake approprinity agriculture ate decisions; and forestry X Develop X Green and apply communities practical knowl- Some of the offerings at the weekly farmers’ market. X Green These notebooks, at top, made of waste paper, were edge, skills construction designed by artist-in-residence Ellen Rogers. and tools to X Alternasolve problems tive energy and related to resource sustainability; and energy efficiency X Manage institutions (e.g., grass If the proposal successfully negotiroots movements, businesses, educaates all hurdles, the first sustainability tional institutions, agencies, governmen- studies class could be accepted in the tal and non-governmental organizafall 2010.
In
February 2008, the sawmill and adjacent pole structure sustained damage to their roofs as a result of heavy ice and snow load and were condemned by the fire marshal. Subsequent evaluations of the mill works and the electrical system, as well as the nearby welding shop, by independent contractors forced me to recommend that those areas be closed until they could be upgraded and made safe for occupancy. We looked at this as an opportunity to modernize the mill. Contracting with McCormick and Sons Inc. (Ohio) and Frick Co. (Ohio), we committed nearly $200,000 to automate the carriage, setworks, and deck; install a sawyer’s
booth large enough for student instruction; and upgrade the electrical system and mill structure. Work was completed in July. Thanks to President John Mills and the administration for recognizing the importance of the sawmill to our forestry students and the importance of forestry and hands-on education to Paul Smith’s. The bottom line is that we intend to continue educating forestry students about sawmill productivity and efficiency. Our goal is to have a safe, modern sawmill complex back online this fall. In the meantime, we used our portable mill, visits to mills in the region, including Canada, and work at a local sawmill to fill the gap left by the temporary loss of our mill. If you’d like to support our new sawmill, call Stephanie Colby in the Office of Institutional Advancement at (518) 327-6259.
Parts of the college’s new sawmill sit on a flatbed truck awaiting installation.
technical consultant for author Carol Smalley who is writing a children’s book entitled One Acorn, Many Trees. ? Dr. Jeff Walton has published
several peer-reviewed papers in the area of remote sensing and GIS over the past few months, including three in the same issue of Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing. ? Dr. Jorie Favreau continues to review manuscripts for journals, including a manuscript for BioScience, and books for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. ? Dr. David Patrick has recently
published papers in peer review in the journals Ecology and Biological Conservation. ? Dr. Andy Egan presented a paper on his research on the sustainability of New England’s farms and farm woodlots at an IUFRO meeting in Gérardmer, France, in June 2008. He also developed and presented a webinar on soil and water quality for Cornell University in June 2009. In addition, he has had two manuscripts recently accepted for publication in the Northern Journal of Applied Forestry.