Focus Species Forestry - Maine Audubon

For riparian and wetland areas and vernal pools, refer to recommendations in Section 5.
Follow recommendations provide by the Maine Natural Areas Program or Department of
Inland Fisheries and Wildlife for other special-value areas such as deer wintering areas
and rare plant habitat. For more information, see Biodiversity in the Forests of Maine
(Flatebo et al. 1999) for guidelines on identification and management.
Step 4. Review habitat management guides.
Section 5 includes descriptions and habitat management guides for each of the 6 forest
ecosystem types and special-value habitats covered by this manual.
Recommendations:
Review the management recommendations for the forest ecosystems and special-value
habitats found on the property.
Step 5. Identify focus species and review species management
recommendations.
Section 6 includes biological information and management recommendations for each of the
focus species featured in this manual.
Use Figure 1 (Section 6) to identify the region of the state where the property is located.
For a “quick start” approach, use the short list of “primary” focus species in Appendix 9;
use other focus species as time and landowner interest allow.
The Focus Species Management Worksheet (Appendix 5) can be used to summarize the
data.
List forest ecosystem types and special-value habitats from Table 1 that are found on the
property.
For each ecosystem type and special-value habitat, list the focus species for the region on
the worksheet. For properties near region boundaries, it may be appropriate to use the
focus species for both regions. Use the habitat types on the property and in the
surrounding landscape to help guide this decision.
Review the management guidelines for each focus species identified for the property.
For a quick reference, refer to the Focus Species Summary Table (page 62).
Step 6. Identify appropriate mix of forest development stages and
management activities.
Focus species forestry involves maintaining suitable habitat for both early successional species
and those that require mature and late-successional forests. The extent that this can be
accomplished on a given ownership depends on ownership size and surrounding landscape
conditions.
Recommendations:
Review the background information and management recommendations in Section 8, the
guide to property-wide and landscape-scale forestry.
Focus Species Forestry 9