Burning and cutting are the two common methods of maintaining and improving woodland habitat for wildlife. They can be used independently or together. Your woodland needs to be protected from all other types of disturbances, and the minimum criteria of plant species diversity, successional stage or age class, and structural components need to be met. All of these standard; collectively constitute a practice. The following practice sections discuss the appropriate Use of disturbances, burning, and cutting for woodland harvest and thinning objectives.

Woodland Protection with Selective Thinning

A woodland can benefit from selective thinning when it does not have a desirable mixture of trees, when too many trees are competing for space, or when it contains invasive exotics. Selective thinning may be used for wildlife crop tree management, where desirable trees are protected or released from competition from neighboring, less desirable species. Crop trees may be any species but often include softmast species such as persimmon, plum, and crabapple, hard-mast species such as oaks and hickories, and cavity formers such as sycamore, American elm, and post oak. For areas where shrubs are desired, such as shrub thickets, shrub borders, and wildlife fencerows with a shrub component, selective thinning should be used to control succession by removing competing or invading trees.

There are three methods of destroying targeted trees and shrubs: girdling, cutting, and herbiciding. These methods can be used together or separately.

Girdling involves cutting into and through a tree's bark to cut off the transfer of nutrients. This kills the tree standing, which can be desirable because it creates a snag. The tree will topple in time, but the process more closely mimics a natural situation. Girdling is generally used for stems more than ten inches in diameter. It is also the preferred method for thorny species like honeylocust because the thorns decompose with time, resulting in fewer "cleanup" problems.

Simple cutting is another way to eliminate unwanted woody species. Stems smaller than six inches in diameter are better cut than girdled.

Herbiciding can be done independent of girdling or cutting with shrubs and seedlings or sapling-size trees, usually as a foliar spray. But take extreme caution to prevent drip or drip or drift from killing non-target plants when conducting foliar applications. Where vegetation surrounding and under the undesired tree or shrub is substantial, the risk of herbicide destruction may warrant cutting down the tree rather than applying a foliar spray. Herbicides also often need to be applied to the cut or girdled surfaces of woody plants to prevent resprouting. Avoid cutting during nesting season and midwinter using the trees for nesting or overwintering. Whenever you cut, try to determine beforehand if larger trees contain bats, squirrels, owls or other roosting species. If animals are using a tree, monitor their presence and cut once the animals have permanently left.

If snags are lacking in your woodland, consider creating some by girdling or injecting herbicide into trees more than six inches in diameter.

A good use of materials cut down during management activities is to build brushpiles. Chapter 7, "Special Features," gives more details.

When planning your objectives for selective thinning, follow the guidelines in "Management Considerations" on disturbance, plant-species diversity and,mast production, successional stage or age class, and structural components.

Woodland Protection with Timber Management

While many people think that logging or cutting for wood products is never compatible with wildlife management, this isn't the case. The activity is harmful only when there isn't enough optimal woodland wildlife habitat or when wildlife considerations have not been carefully woven into the timber-cutting plan. To ensure wildlife needs are met, keep the following points in mind when cutting for lumber or firewood:

If you're working with a commercial timber harvester, sign a contract that specifies the terms you want and which trees are to be harvested. Incorporate language that ensures minimal damage to remaining trees and the forest floor. Otherwise you may find your woodland severely damaged. Using an IDNR forester is highly recommended. These foresters provide timber harvest advice to landowners at no cost.

Woodland Protection with Prescribed Burning

Current studies and historical research have shown that fire benefits most Illinois forests, especially the oak-hickory communities. This does not contradict what we have been taught by Smokey the Bear to prevent uncontrolled forest fires. The key here is controlled, or prescribed, fire. Before European settlement, most Illinois landscapes were shaped by periodic fire. But more recently, fire has been suppressed by the elimination of the high-fuel habitats like prairie and by widespread campaigns against "wildfires." This has resulted in ecological changes in our plant communities, including many forests, which need some fire to thrive. The reintroduction of prescribed fire into some forest ecosystems has yielded very positive results.

Savannas in Illinois were completely fire dependent. Without fire, the savanna would often eventually succeed to a closed-canopy forest. Restoring or re-creating a savanna requires periodic burning.

Since fire disturbance is by prescription, it shouldn't be conducted without a purpose. Prescribed fire should be incorporated into an overall land management plan; your objectives will determine the location and timing of the burn. Burning can be used to benefit woodlands in three ways: to control- invasion of exotic species, such as bush honeysuckles, garlic mustard, and Japanese honeysuckle; to thin stands of maple and other shade-tolerant species while making conditions favorable for regenerating oak seedlings; and to regenerate herbaceous forest-floor species such as woodland wildflowers. In savannas, fire maintains the herbaceous ground cover, which is often composed of prairie plants. Prairie also needs fire to thrive (see chapter 2).

Prescribed burning requires preplanning and fire management training. For guidance on how to plan and conduct a prescribed burn, see Conducting Prescribed Burns in the suggested reading list.

No more than half of a woodland should be burned at anyone time, and burning should be done only from late October through early April to avoid the prime nesting season. In the southern half of the state, wildflowers begin to emerge in March, so burning activities may need to end earlier than April. When planning your objectives for prescribed burning, follow the guidelines in "Management Considerations" on disturbance, plant-species diversity and mast production, successional stage or age class, and structural components.