Visit to Silver Bluff

        For our Conservation Ecology class, we have visited three different and unique field sites, yet all of them share the desire to preserve certain wildlife species, and conduct local conservation efforts which, hopefully, will help maintain the ecological health of the world. The NWTF has had great success in restoring America’s wild turkey population, and even expanding the turkey’s population into states where it has never inhabited. The organization gathers its funds from license fees and taxes on guns, and has also helped to educate hunters on the importance of preservation and the dangers of excessive hunting. Beidler Forest has also had much success in preserving the species it initially aimed to conserve, mainly Bald Cypress and the Prothonotary Warbler, preserving the area’s health, and protecting the area from clearcutting and other economic pursuits. Beidler’s funds come from membership fees and entrance fees into the area. 

        The Audubon Silver Bluff is different from the other two organizations, in that it has had provide its own funds for the organization’s operations, which has led them to use the environment in a different manner than the NWTF and Beidler. Similar to old-school forestry operations, the Silver Bluff makes money by growing trees and harvesting them for timber. However, instead of just selling timber, Silver Bluff also collects and sells the pine straw that comes from these trees. This allows them to practice traditional forestry in a sustainable manner; they sell timber, but only use a designated area for planting, cutting, and replanting trees, and to supplement their income, they gather pine straw so that they do not have to cut down so many trees for timber.  
        Silver Bluff’s conservation mission also surprised me in another way. I already knew that foresters used controlled burns to take away fuel for future wildfires, but I did not know that they also used fires to rid the area of certain species of trees. I did not know that Sweetgum was considered a pest, and I could not fathom a reason for why a forester would want to remove Oak trees from an area. But after learning Silver Bluff’s goal to return parts of Aiken to their original, native habitat, now I understand that in order to do so, the nonnative and the pest-like species of trees have to die. Both the NWTF and Silver Bluff's conservation missions succeed in maintaining a healthy balance between life and death, and where the living (whether turkeys, trees, or humans) actually benefit, by bringing America one step closer to its original habitat.