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School of Forestry and Natural Resources newsletter
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A newsletter of the School of Natural Resource Management & Ecology at Paul Smith’s College
knockout
BRANCHING OUT 2012, Issue 1
Letter From the DeanIN THIS ISSUE:
NSF grant 2
Silvopasture experiment 3
Forestry Day at the VIC 4
Many of you have received this newsletter before. For many
others, this will be a first. There’s a good reason for that: Paul Smith’s College recently switched from three to two divisions. Academically, our programs remain the same; adminis-tratively, though, we’re bringing sev-eral disciplines under one umbrella.
The school of Natural Resource Management and Ecology now offers programs in fisheries and wildlife sciences, arboriculture and landscape management, forestry, biology and many other science-related degrees. Ultimately, the shift will benefit students by offering them the same
education with less fragmentation. And thanks to a generous grant
from the National Science Foundation – you can read more on page 2 – even more worthy students will have the opportunity to enroll in some of these science-related programs.
No matter which degree they choose, Paul Smith’s offers students plenty of rich opportunities, on and off campus. Interested in hunting or trapping? Now there’s a three-credit course for that. Like to travel? Take a trip to the Dominican Republic or Hawaii. Do you like timber sports? Our woodsmen’s school is thriving like never before. And that’s just a
taste of what’s going on these days. I really hope you enjoy reading about the rest of it. And, as ever, I would love to hear how you’re doing, as well.
Sincerely,
Jeff [email protected]
School of Natural Resource Management & EcologyP.O. Box 265, Paul Smiths, NY 12970-0265
Change Service Requested
Non-profit Org.U.S. Postage
PAIDUtica, NY
Permit No. 566
Sportsman EducationHunting and trapping are
essential tools for wildlife
management and form the back-
bone of the North American model
of wildlife conservation. It’s natural,
then, that Paul Smith’s College offers a course on the subject.
Students enrolled in our for-credit Sportsman Education class, offered for the
first time this spring, received New York State certification in hunter education
(firearms), bowhunter education, trapper education, and waterfowl identifica-
tion, each a requirement to hold specific hunting and trapping licenses in North
America. The course is taught by Ben Tabor, a wildlife technician with the New York
State Department of Environmental Conservation, who trains New York sportsman
education instructors. The course covers the history and importance of hunting and
prepares wildlife professionals to understand its role in wildlife management.
NSF grant to aid science studentsPaul Smith’s College has won a $530,000 grant
from the National Science Foundation that
will help students pursue careers in science.
Students majoring in fisheries and wildlife
science or environmental science will be eligible
for scholarships that will be covered by the grant.
The grant is part of an NSF initiative to
increase the nation’s strength in science, technol-
ogy, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
More than 400 colleges and universities applied
for the grant; Paul Smith’s was among
approximately 90 chosen to receive an award.
As many as 14 students at a time will benefit
from Paul Smith’s new Enhancing Ecological
Education Scholarship Program, or E3SP. The
grant will cover scholarships for five years,
beginning in fall 2012 and running through the
2016-2017 academic year.
“The Adirondacks are one of the best class-
rooms imaginable to give students the founda-
tion they need to pursue work in ecology and
the environment,” says Prof. Jorie Favreau,
director of E3SP. “Students in E3SP will work di-
rectly with faculty members on original research
and experience firsthand the thrill of discovery,
building the basis for lifelong careers in science.”
Student scholarship
Each year at the New York State Arborists
Conference, a scholarship is given to a
different arboricultural student to help pay for
college. This year, Paul Smith’s student Mark Bouquin received the $1,700 gift. Bouquin was
recognized in front of more than 200 arborists
in January while attending the conference with
Prof. Randall Swanson.
Draft Horse Club
The Draft Horse Club received $8,466 in
campus sustainability fund grants, partially
because it decided to start producing its own
food for horses by plowing and harvesting the
hay they eat in a nearby field. The grant money
also paid for new horse-drawn farming
equipment, which will be used to prepare
Gould’s Garden for plowing this year. Read uS onlineWould you rather receive Branching Out by email? Email [email protected]
Dominican trip Paul Smith’s College launched its
ecotourism collaboration with a
college in the Dominican Republic
in January, when Profs. Joe dadey
and Brett Mcleod and 13 students
traveled to the Caribbean. Students
worked on four different projects with colleagues at
the National School of the Environment, located in the mountain town of
Jarabacoa. Together, they constructed three tenting platforms and designed a
resources inventory guide, an interpretive trail and brochure, and designed a plan
to improve community participation in local projects.
They relied on guides to teach them about the area’s existing ecotourism venues
and sampled a variety of accommodations, travel companies and adventure
activities. They also spent time at a high-mountain organic coffee plantation
to learn the ins and outs of direct trade in the coffee industry and tourism
development in the Dominican Republic.
In their down time, they played pickup baseball games with the Dominican
students, saw rare iguanas, visited caves that revealed ancient indigenous
pictographs and went rafting, canyoning, deep-sea fishing and snorkeling.
Woodsmen’s School thrivingThe Adirondack Woodsmen’s School will be featured in the Adirondack Life Annual Guide.
Now in its the third year, enrollment is
expected to reach nearly 50 students.
Several major manufacturers sponsor
the program, including Carhartt work
wear, Stihl power equipment and Red
Wing Shoes.
To see a video of Prof. Bob Brhel and the draft horse team being used
for horse logging as part of the
Woodsmen’s School, visit http://
youtu.be/Jg5QFLOot1A.
Sugaring seasonRecord-high temperatures
this spring took their toll on
maple syrup producers across the
Northeast, and the Paul Smith’s
Sugar Bush fared no better. Sap
runs best when days are cool and
nights dip below freezing – but
with the thermometer approaching
80 degrees some days in March, the
sugar bush’s season ended after
just 31/2 weeks. Hans Michielen,
the Sugar Bush manager, says he
would normally produce about 600
gallons in an average year. This year,
he got 375.
Prof leads trip, pens book review
Prof. Jorie Favreau brought students to
Hawaii in November 2011 for the national
meeting of The Wildlife Society. Students went
bird watching in a cloud forest, saw endangered
species that may go extinct in our lifetimes,
visited Volcanoes National Park, hiked through
a crater, saw the red glow of the lava at night,
competed in a quiz bowl, participated in a
professional-student mixer and attended talks.
Favreau also reviewed “Biology and Management
of White-Tailed Deer” in the Dec. 2011 issue of
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Librar-
ies. Favreau called the book, edited by David G.
Hewitt, essential for wildlife library collections
serving students of all levels as well as research-
ers, faculty, biologists and managers.
Students publish
Prof. David Patrick and several students
published a paper in the Herpetological
Review. The paper, on ecology of mink frogs
in the Adirondacks, will appear in the journal
later this year; Zac Bozic ’11, Alex Byrne, Jenna Daub, Alex LeChaminant and Josh Pierce were co-authors.
“The five undergraduate students who
worked on this paper were fully involved in
the research, design and implementation of
the field and laboratory methods,” Patrick
said. “Four of the five are current students.
It’s pretty rare for undergraduates to be
co-authors on peer-reviewed papers and
even rarer to get the papers accepted in a
time when they are applying for their first
jobs following graduation.”
Silvopastures
Prof. Joe Orefice was awarded a
$14,570 Sustainable Agriculture
Research and Education grant to
conduct a silvopasture experiment
at his farm in Riverview. Silvopas-
ture combines forests, cattle and
grazing fields in one location. The
systems have proven to be produc-
tive and profitable in other parts
of the country and world, but little
is known about the benefits and
tradeoffs of using them on farms
in the northeastern United States.
Orefice’s research will test the envi-
ronmental and economic impacts
of converting a northern hard-
woods stand into a silvopasture.
Tree doctorsWhen students in the arboriculture
course performed tree surgery tasks in
class this spring, they had some new tools
at their disposal thanks to a gift from
the Husqvarna/ArborMaster Collegiate
Training Program. Last year, Husqvarna
presented two 346 XP Pro chainsaws to
Daniel Groves, a technical instructor at
the college, during a two-day educator
workshop in North Carolina. The saws are
valued at $550 apiece.
First-growth forest in the Adirondacks Ever wonder what the Adirondacks looked like
hundreds of years ago?
Long-time Paul Smith’s College professor
Michael Kudish returned to campus in April to dis-
cuss the subject with a talk titled “Adirondack First
Growth Forests: How to Recognize and Map Them.”
“Many people are curious to see what
Adirondack forests looked like several hundred
years ago before the effects of Europeans on the
landscape,” Kudish told the crowd in the
auditorium of the Freer Science building. While
there are still many original forests, Kudish said no
one person knows where it all is and how much we
have. His lecture offered techniques for recognizing
and mapping first-growth forests, and estimates on
how much is out there.
To view the lecture, visit http://youtu.be/
5MCk-sWgdbU.
> Student Clinton Williams scales a tree near the Phelps Smith Administration Building.
. L-R: Steve Handfield, Kris Friers, Ben Haigh and Hannah Wahlstrom.
Pat Hendrick | Press-Republican
Quiz bowl The quiz team fielded by the Paul Smith’s
College Student Chapter of the Society of
American Foresters (SAF) bested the competition
in the annual Quiz Bowl challenge, held at the
New England chapter’s winter meeting in April.
It was the first time a team from Paul Smith’s
won the forestry-trivia challenge since 2008.
The team was led by Profs. Joe Orefice and
Matt Olson ’99 and faced off against competi-
tors from the University of New Hampshire, Green
Mountain College and UMass-Amherst, which
hosted the event. – Rand Snyder
Forestry DayForestry Day at the Paul
Smith’s College VIC in
October featured
competitions in axe
throwing, log chopping
and bow saw cutting. There
was also a six-person relay
featuring wood block
cutting with a bow saw,
wood splitting by hand
and sorting and stacking
firewood.