From the Associated pRess via the Knox News Sentinel
DOVER, Tenn. - Controlled burning in the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area is bringing part of the 173,000-acre peninsula on the Kentucky-Tennessee border closer to how it might have looked in the early 1700s.
Native American cultures practiced basic land management, including selective tree thinning and clearing to support wildlife and healthier forests, said Jim McCoy, LBL wildlife biologist/fire management officer.
"It's pretty well documented through Native American cultures that fire was used to develop farms and ranchland to create habitats for wildlife," McCoy said. "That shaped the landscape into a combination of open areas called 'barrens' and forests that were park-like by today's standards, where bigger, healthier trees were more widely distributed and more sunlight was therefore able to reach the forest floor."
When Europeans began settling the peninsula between the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, fires were suppressed and the forests grew thicker with dense undergrowth.
The U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the area, began prescribed burning in March along 350 of the 5,000 acres on the Tennessee side of LBL's Oak-Grassland Demonstration Area, where visitors can watch and learn about the project.
Out of the blackened, ash-laden earth of the post-burn, new native grasses are peeking through, and small sassafras and huckleberry trees are sprouting, providing a good food source for wildlife, particularly deer.
The program should help introduce more grasses and wildflowers to the landscape and also encourage expansion of a fire-adapted species of tree that's surprisingly prevalent in the park, the Big-Tooth Aspen.
To help track their success, officials are monitoring some of the area's most imperiled species, McCoy said.
"This idea of ecosystem restoration is not completely unique to LBL," he said. "There are others going on around the nation, but this one is unique in that it comes with a dedicated environmental education component."
