Rare warbler, the reason for controversial forest clearing, shows up on Sparta Mountain

SPARTA — The sighting of a rare golden-winged warbler last month, later confirmed with photographs, is being heralded by some as a sign that a controversial forestry management plan for the Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area could be working.

The warbler, which is on both state and federal Endangered Species Lists, had not been seen for some time in the Highlands of New Jersey. The bird, which migrates north each spring from South American wintering grounds, became the poster species for state and New Jersey Audubon Society efforts to create on their adjoining properties the sort of young forest habitat which the species prefers.

The warbler is known to prefer forests about 5 to 6 years old, said Eric Stiles, president and CEO of New Jersey Audubon, explaining that changes in the land and human influence have reduced the type of habitat the bird seeks out.

 The site where the May sighting occurred was managed about six years ago. The bird was spotted and photographed in May.

The rare warbler was discovered by Sharon Petzinger, a state Division of Fish and Wildlife senior zoologist, while conducting annual bird surveys.

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Audubon Stewardship Project Director John Parke photographed the bird at a later date in the same location and photographer Steve Buckingham also got a picture of the bird singing.

Some areas have been clear cut and others were subject to less aggressive, selective tree removal to open the forest canopy and allow more sunlight to spur quicker growth of mature trees to imitate an old-growth forest.

Cutting down trees to help wildlife may sound counterintuitive, especially after decades of activism to save the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest by protecting swaths of forest from logging.

But the point is to create more young forest with low, shrubby growth surrounded by large, mature trees — the landscape that certain at-risk species, such as the golden-winged warbler, prefer as breeding habitat.

It's a relatively new form of public land management being used by many northern states, including New Jersey. For instance, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation worked in recent years with Passaic County to develop a small area of young forest for golden-winged warblers in Tranquility Ridge County Park on the Ringwood-West Milford border.

The warbler has been observed in the young forest habitat on Sparta Mountain throughout the 2020 breeding season. The birds nest on the ground in forest openings where sunlight stimulates abundant plant growth, which provides concealment for the nests and abundant insects to feed on.

The strikingly feathered golden-winged warbler — which weighs about three pennies and measures the width of a hand — has suffered a steep decline through its breeding range in the Highlands. There were 100 pairs in the Highlands in the 1990s, but now there are only about 25 pairs.

It is considered an umbrella species — representative of a number of birds that rely on young forest habitat and which also are declining and could benefit from the plan for the forest. These include: prairie warbler, indigo bunting, Nashville warbler, field sparrow, yellow-breasted chat, eastern towhee and brown thrasher.

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Part of the problem, say some ecologists, is that much of the forest in New Jersey — and throughout the northern Appalachian region — is middle-aged, with trees all about 60 to 90 years old, without patches of younger forest the warbler and other species need.

The region also lacks old-growth forest — trees at least 120 years old — which provides habitat for other species.

Much of the state's forests were cleared for agriculture and logged for wood to burn or build with through the 1800s, and many of those areas were left to grow back through the early 1900s. That's why the state's forests are all of similar age.

On Sparta Mountain, Thomas Edison cleared some of the forest in 1891 to construct roads and buildings for a mining operation that employed nearly 500 for about a decade. Today, the ruins of stone foundations remain, shrouded in eerie shade from the tall, century-old trees standing like sentinels around them.

The state Division of Fish and Wildlife owns the 3,461-acre wildlife management area and the Audubon Society preserve is surrounded by the state-owned land.

The DEP published an initial forestry plan in 2009, which drew scant notice. An update to the plan, published in late 2015, drew the attention of protesters who opposed cutting any trees. The final plan, signed in March 2017, called for scattered areas to be treated.

Opponents accused the state DEP of logging and pocketing profits.

Yet few loggers are interested in harvesting trees from the forest, Dave Golden, director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife, said during a tour of the forest last winter.

Those foresters who back the “young forest initiative” say that humans need to create clearings to encourage small animals and birds.

“Golden-winged warblers, as shown through research, appear to be a bit picky in that they like a later stage of young forest habitat and they like those patches to be surrounded by a more mature forest,” Stiles said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service created a Golden-Winged Warbler Working Group in 2003. The group consists of scientists from academic institutions, government agencies and non-government organizations who have developed strategies to recover the species on a national level.