Camp Friedenswald Prarie Fen Controlled Burn Update : Welcome To Shavehead Lake On The Web!

March 30, 2008 - Camp Friedenswald Prarie Fen Controlled Burn Update

Update on Fen Restoration Project

Doug Landis, Natural Resources Task Force Member

Camp Friedenswald is blessed to have several examples of high quality prairie fen on its property. Prairie fen is a type of groundwater fed wetland that is unique to glaciated areas of the upper Midwestern US. These habitats are considered globally rare and contain many unusual plants and animals, including several endangered species. In the past, fens would frequently burn as fires swept across the prairie-savanna landscapes of southwest Michigan. In those days, fens would have appeared as very open meadows with only a few scattered clumps of shrubs and trees. More recently as humans have suppressed fires in the landscape, fens have undergone significant change. In the absence of fire, shrubs and trees readily expand in the fen, shading the ground layer and excluding the grasses, sedges and flowering plants that give fens their unique biodiversity. At Friedenswald, the large wetlands to the East and West of the tennis courts both high quality areas of prairie fen but they are rapidly shrinking as woody vegetation shades them out.

In 2006, we initiated a project to restore the camp’s prairie fen habitats. We began by cutting some of the shrubs in the highest quality areas. In 2007 we collaborated with the Michigan DNR to use a prescribed burn. The burn was conducted by a professional burn contractor under guidelines set by the MDNR. The result of the fire was to set back some of the shrubs and open more habitat for fen plants and animals. In 2008 a follow-up burn is planned to further restore the habitat. The next stage in the larger restoration effort will be to open a corridor between the two fens so that insects, birds and other animals can more easily disperse from fen to fen. This will involve cutting and removal of some of the invasive autumn olive from the area behind the tennis courts. Over time, this area will be restored to the oak savanna character that it had in the past.

To learn more about prairie fens and associated habitats see: http://web4.msue.msu.edu/mnfi/abstracts/ecology/Prairie_fen.pdf

For more information, visit our website at
www.friedenswald.org

or call us at 269-476-9744

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