80-90% of my trapline burned last year. Cabin was saved. Time I spent this year was all spent opening up trails. Should be good marten habitat soon. Do the marten in Ontario come back better after a burn ??
Not at all. Ask Jim Gibb how logging and fires have affected the marten population in the Timmins area of NE Ont.The marten have never came back because of the extensive fragmentation of older forest cover.They simply could not re populate into good habitat from core habitat further North because of the open country due to the logging and fires.
Marten here need 60-80 year old growth with good overhead cover,and only then if there is connected adjacent old growth with lots of coarse woody debris on the ground for winter subnivean access,and lots of old standing chicots for nesting.
Large forest fires,and the old massive clearcuts wipe out marten traplines.You wont have enough marten to harvest for 50 years at least.
Old burns and logged off areas produce great lynx country after 20-25 year regrowth.
Moose/beaver habitat used to be excellent shortly after a forest fire or large clearcut,unfortunately that is no longer the case because of the herbicidal spraying of VISION to kill the deciduous early successional growth,and the leaving of coniferous buffers around lakes and along rivers.
We had some sucess in recommending that the loggers cut right down to the shorelines on at leas part of the lakes where spraying of vision is not allowed-this left some deciduous growth for beaver and moose.
it was tough to get this into the stand and site guide,since the outfitters didnt want their clients to see logging operations from their "pristine" lake experience.
Fox come back heavy in the wide open country after a fire or clearcut,but drop off once the lynx come back.On one line that I had been trapping about 10 years after a big fire went thru I was taking over 50 fox a season for quite a few years.This line now has succeeded to prime lynx habitat,and 5 or 6 fox a season is now the norm.
I have been around long enough and trapped many different traplines to know the devastating effects of large fires and clearcutting on traplines.
One of my traplines was burned in the early 60's,at that time it had a consistent quota/marten harvest of 260.
Harvest now on that line is 55,with the odd year doubling to 110 when there are high juvenile numbers of dispersing marten along the river corridors where old growth remains.
