Wild Turkeys and Climate-Adaptive Forestry

The NWTF and partners recently hosted a forest resiliency summit that brought together numerous stakeholders from across the conservation community – including forest ecologists, academic researchers, agency leaders and land managers – to collaborate and share information designed to drive the sustainability of the Commonwealth’s forests.

Partners included the Ruffed Grouse Society, Mount Grace Land Trust, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

Though relatively small in landmass, Massachusetts is home to over three million acres of forests that provide crucial wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, sustainable forest products, clean water and many other benefits. The forest professionals at the summit presented forward-thinking information to guide the sustainability, stewardship and conservation of the state’s forests and to perpetuate the many benefits that come from them. 

While various forest-related and wildlife topics were discussed, the carbon cycle as it relates to forests remained the focal point of discourse. 

Carbon dioxide is responsible for some of the increasingly alarming effects climate change has on wildlife, such as warming trout streams, droughts increasing in frequency and duration, ecological imbalance and so on. 

Forests worldwide are carbon sinks, meaning they store carbon, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to mitigate the effect climate change has on wildlife. However, some forests are better equipped to store carbon than others. That begs the question, “What types of forests are optimal for storing carbon?” Interestingly, the same types of forests in which wild turkeys thrive. 

“Carbon storage is the amount of carbon stored in a sink at a given time,” said Matt DiBona, NWTF New England district biologist. “Carbon sequestration, however, is the rate at which carbon is stored. Young forests, for instance, sequester carbon at a much higher rate than older age-class forests, but older forests store more carbon at a given time.”  

The summit's overarching theme was creating diverse-aged forests that optimize both carbon sequestration and carbon storage. Keeping forests diverse in such a way not only addresses the carbon issue but also has many benefits, including those for wild turkeys.   

“Wild turkeys thrive in a contiguous mosaic of habitat,” DiBona said. “In other words, a mixture of habitat types, together, provide wild turkeys the roosting, brood-rearing and foraging habitat they depend upon. Think of mature trees for roosting, grassy openings for foraging and brood-rearing and young forests for cover and nesting.”

Benefits of climate adaptive forestry also include sustainable wood products, clean water, robust recreational opportunities and substantial forests capable of withstanding and thriving from disturbance. These qualities are all evident in the NWTF Four Shared Values. 

Creating climate-adaptive forests involves active forest management, which refers to diversifying the forest age class through techniques such as planting trees, selective harvesting, prescribed fire and more. 

The summit is part of a larger effort called the Massachusetts Dynamic Forest Restoration Initiative, in which the NWTF is a proud partner.

Through a USDA Forest Service Landscape Scale Restoration Grant, the new initiative is conducting management on about 2,000 acres of public forests, as well as providing outreach and assistance to private woodlot owners in the Commonwealth.

“This is an exciting initiative where we collaborate with partners with shared interests,” said DiBona. “It shows that we can take NWTF’s landscape-scale conservation framework and apply it to smaller regions, in this case, Massachusetts. We are excited to get the community involved and watch the work unfold.”