Tongass National Forest

Unthinned stand

Due to past large-scale logging, a large portion of the low elevation old-growth forests on Prince of Wales Island has been converted to young-growth (second-growth). Low elevation old-growth provides critical habitat for a variety of wildlife species. Keynote species include Sitka black-tailed deer, Alexander Archipelago wolf, and the Queen Charlotte goshawk.

Our wildlife habitat restoration efforts on POW have been focused on treatment of these young growth stands. In their current condition these stand provide very little habitat. Due to the dense closed canopy, young growth provides very little forage and structurally these stands are very uniform.

We have been using a variety of treatment types to obtain our goal of increasing forage production and creating multi-layered more complex stands. Thinning prescriptions we have used include 14 x 14 spacing, 16 x 16 spacing, and variable spaced. In older young growth stands we are cutting "canopy gaps" to create small openings in the overstory to try to increase forage production in these older stands