The tennessee wildlife resources agency has successfully restored over 10,000-acres of carbon sequestering climate resilient bottomland hardwood forest stands over the past 19 years on wildlife…

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, through its National Wildlife Refuge System Enhancements program (CFDA 15.654), awarded a $750,000 Project Grant to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency to restore 5,000 acres of 12-18 year old bottomland hardwood forest stands in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley. The project will use targeted herbicide treatments to control undesirable tree species and perform crop-tree release to improve the forest composition. This will create an abundance of small snags, increased sunlight availability, and greater understory vegetation, which will benefit a variety of wildlife species such as swamp rabbits, wild turkeys, and Swainson's warblers. The project period runs from October 1, 2023 to December 31, 2026.

The tennessee wildlife resources agency has successfully restored over 10,000-acres of carbon sequestering climate resilient bottomland hardwood forest stands over the past 19 years on wildlife management areas (wmas) throughout the lower mississippi alluvial valley in west tennessee. Many of the early-established stands have now transitioned from the stand initiation stage to the stem exclusion stage of forest succession. During this transition, light-seeded undesirable species such as eastern cottonwood (populus deltoids) and american sycamore (platanus occidentalis) naturally occupied large portions of the restored stands resulting in intense competition with more desirable species such as swamp chestnut OAK (quercus michauxii), cherrybark OAK (quercus pagoda), and common persimmon (diospyros virginiana). This climate smart forestry project will use well-studied injection herbicide treatments to target undesirable species and perform croptree-release treatments to improve forest composition across 5000-acres of 12- to 18-year old bottomland hardwood forest stands. The influx of small snags produced by these treatments in addition to increased sunlight availability will result in an explosion of invertebrate abundance and a notable increase in understory vegetation. This will also create roost trees for BAT species. Increased coarse woody debris and understory vegetation will greatly increase forage and cover resources for several wildlife species such as swamp rabbit (sylvalagus aquaticus), wild turkey (melleagris gallapavo), and swainson s warbler (limnothlypis swainsonii).