complete agenda - Florida Department of Environmental Protection

Unit Name: Seminole State Forest
Acres: 27,064.28 Managing Agency: FDACS-DOF
Current Management Plan
Approved:
383
12/19/2000
Narrative:
Seminole State Forest (SSF) is comprised of over 27,000 acres. The larger Seminole Tract located
in Lake County within the scenic Wekiva River Basin. The small and remote 120-acre Warea Tract
is in southern Lake County. Beginning in 1990 and continuing through 2007, the main Seminole
Tract properties were acquired under the C.A.R.L., Save Our Rivers, P-2000, and Florida Forever
programs in order to protect remaining habitat that supported endangered species. Natural
communities on SSF include flatwoods, scrub, scrubby flatwoods, blackwater streams and
bottomland forests. SSF has fourteen named springs on the forest, including Palm, Moccasin, and
Shark's Tooth Springs. The forest contains over 1,700 acres of sand pine scrub found
predominately in Florida. SSF provides important habitat for 25 rare and threatened animals such
as Sherman’s fox squirrel, Florida black bear, scrub-jay, gopher tortoise, and sand skink. Twenty
imperiled plant species occur on the forest, including the Florida hasteola, scrub bay, scrub holly
and clasping warea. There are over 20 miles of single-use hiking and equestrian trails. A portion of
the hiking trail is part of the Florida National Scenic Trail. Bicyclists can access open roads and
designated bicycle trails. Access for canoeists to Blackwater Creek is provided through a day use /
boat launch area. Drive-up primitive camping, by permit, is provided at three sites on the forest.
In addition, the forest is designated as a FWC wildlife management area, offering a variety fishing
and quota and small game hunting.
In an effort to standardize the land management planning and reporting methods implemented by
all state land managers, the LMUAC has established eight common management goals and 32
quantitative measures that should be addressed by all management plans, where they apply to the
specific purposes and mission of each management unit. The Division of Forestry’s progress
towards achieving the common goals and applicable core objectives, as well as additional State
Forest-specific objectives for the SSF is described in quantitative terms on Tables 1- 8. The
management plan for SSF was approved prior to July 2008, and does not contain specific measures
and timeframes for the goals, objectives and recommended actions. In the narrative below, the
last two years of applicable outstanding accomplishments, deficiencies and corrective actions, and
other important or clarifying information is provided for each of the LMUAC management goals.
Regular burning maintains the scrub ecosystem in Florida and is essential to providing the quality
habitat required for the federally threatened Florida scrub-jay. SSF prescribe burned over 4500
acres, the highest annual total in ten years. Since 2008, approximately 1,200 acres of scrub have
been improved or restored. The staff has also planted 190 acres of longleaf pine on SSF. The
Division of Forestry manages the Forest under the multiple-use concept balancing environmental,
recreational and resource use needs. Two miles of forest road have been rebuilt and 3 culverts
installed. Approximately 1,500 acres have been thinned or harvested (25,000 tons removed with
revenue of over $180,000). SSF staff completed nearly 10,000 acres for forest inventory cruising.
Ongoing efforts continue to monitor and/or treat approximately 100 acres impacted with nonnative,
invasive plants. Recent focus has been to treat cogon grass (8 acres) and air potato (9
acres) whose known populations can be considered to be in a stable, or “maintenance”, condition.
There are 22 DHR-recorded archaeological and historical sites known to occur on SSF.
Extensive monitoring of the scrub-jay population continues and indicates that the population, while
fluctuating, has remained stable at 43 territories. Special focus the past two years has been to
intensely survey scrub-jay nests and their nesting habits - which identified a significant increase in
nest predation this year (15 fledglings) compared to last year (45 fledglings).