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The Natural Bloomington Blog

Mar
08

Climate change and Southern Indiana forests

 

The Southern Indiana forests that nature lovers will explore a century from now will be transformed by the impacts of global climate change, according to a new report from the U.S. Forest Service. They also may be less hospitable for humans and endangered species.

Upland forests in regions of moderate precipitation, like Southern Indiana, are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of global climate change, say the authors of the 254-page Central Hardwoods Ecosystem Vulnerability Assessment and Synthesis," which analyzes the forested, southern regions of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.

"Projections suggest that northern mesic species such as sugar maple, American beech, and white ash may fare worse under future compared to current climate conditions," the report says. "But other species such as post oak and shortleaf and loblolly pine may benefit from projected changes in climate."

 

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Mar
01

Muscatatuck: Land of winding waters, endangered species

 
SEYMOUR - The Bird Checklist at the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge offers more than proof the 7,724-acre preserve deserves its designation as a "continentally important" bird area. The 279 species it lists, along with the North American river otters that now thrive throughout the state, are testaments to the role that public lands play in the restoration and salvation of life on the planet.
 
Owned and managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Muscatatuck's mission, first and foremost, is to restore, preserve and maintain habitat for wildlife, especially waterfowl, endangered species and other migrating birds. Among them are the federally threatened copperbelly water snake, two state endangered birds and 17 bird species of "management concern."
 
In 1995, federal officials reintroduced the otter to Indiana at Muscatatuck, ending a half century of exile from the state due to habitat loss and overtrapping. Since 2003, a remote area of the preserve has been part of efforts to reintroduce the endangered whooping crane.
 
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Feb
15

Southeast Indiana: Otters, fossils, cliffs, and ...

 
That Southeast Indiana is not an area I know well was highlighted in bold font the past few weeks, as I've started work on our Southern Indiana guidebook. Federal, state and nonprofit organizations have more than 96,000 acres of the region under some level of permanent protection, at 20 different locations, from Richmond to Charlestown. But In all my years exploring the state south of I-70, I've only been to three of them.
 
And two of those are really one. Whitewater Memorial State Park and Brookville Lake abut one another about 17 miles south of Richmond on the East Fork of the Whitewater River. Together, their 18,000-plus acres comprise one of the state's largest concentrations of outdoor recreation reserves, with two lakes, two state recreation areas and a nature preserve.
 
With visions of river otters and bald eagles; old-growth upland and flatwoods forests; rugged, fossil-rich cliffs; and floodplain river bottom on the Ohio River, my summer work plans are taking shape.
 
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Feb
08

Leonard Springs and the polar vortex

Walking along Ridgetop Road toward the Leonard Springs Nature Park trailhead, I wasn't sure what to expect in a winter season more suited to Northern Minnesota than Southern Indiana. It was my first trek there in winter, and I hoped the waterfalls below would be a mass of gleaming ice sculptures reflecting a brilliant February sun. But I knew better than to expect the expected from karst topography.
 
A few steps down the stairway, whose precipitous descent leads just beyond the Shirley Springs Shelter Cave, part of the answer revealed itself, bringing to mind a two-century-old John James Audubon quote. “The rumbling sound of the waters as they tumble over the rock-paved rapids is at all times soothing to the ear.”
 
Audubon wrote about the Falls of the Ohio a hundred miles to the south. But his observation befit the polar scene this Friday afternoon at Shirley Springs. The water was indeed running, despite the sub-zero temperatures that preceded the moment just hours and weeks before. In places, the flow had frozen over limestone ledges into glistening, bulging, icicle formations, mere inches from still-running, splashing water. Such is the marvel that is karst topography.
 
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Feb
01

Planning the Hoosier National History and Nature Photography ecotours

When my editor and I sat down at Soma Coffeehouse Friday morning for our second brainstorming session on our Southern Indiana guidebook project, I told her I needed help redirecting my energy and spirit back toward the woods. Let's just say I'd been swept way off-topic for a few days.
 
I left with an espresso buzz and a sack full of guidebooks she has already published on Indiana trees, wildflowers, ferns, caves, karst, and the Knobstone Trail. I arrived home to an email from an aspiring journalist who wants to write a story for a top-notch student magazine that circulates around Southern Indiana. By day's end, I had arranged transportation for the Hoosier National History and Nature Photography Ecotours on May 3 and 17.
 
As I was finishing this blog post the next day, I received and accepted an invitation from the Bloomington Press Club to make a presentation about Natural Bloomington at their March meeting. Mission accomplished, I'd say, and just in time.
 
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Jan
25

Leaving the Deam Wilderness Area to others

News from the U.S. Forest Service that I can't take Natural Bloomington ecotour guests into the Charles Deam Wilderness Area sparked conflicting reactions down at my core. As the shining symbol of natural resource protection in Southern Indiana, the 13,000-acre swath of forested ridges on Lake Monroe is the place I have the most stories about. As a neophyte environmental activist in 1982, for example, I drove an aide to U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar there for its dedication.
 
The Deam would have been an ecotour highlight, for sure. But I've worried about taking more humans out there since my granddaughter Raina and I climbed the Hickory Ridge Fire Tower the first sunny-spring Saturday last May. The Grubb Ridge and Fire Tower parking lots overflowed into on-road parking. The dust was so thick on Tower Ridge Road that I worried about visibility as I drove. It was inescapable.

 

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Jan
18

Coming soon: Natural Bloomington, the book

When Linda Oblack and I finished our first conversation about a guidebook on Southern Indiana natural areas, the IU Press sponsoring editor said she'd give me some time to think about it. My response: "I've been thinking about this one for 40 years." The next day I had a preliminary outline and a list of nearly 150 dedicated natural areas south of I-70.
 
To be perfectly clear, there's no deal here. A lot has to happen before A Guide to Southern Indiana Natural Areas (working title) hits any bookstore shelves. Lots of others have to sign off. But if they do, it would be the fourth in the genre that Linda has edited in press's Indiana Natural Science series. She's done one on the Knobstone Trail, another on Indiana's caves and karst, with another in the works on Goose Pond.

 

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Jan
11

Focus on the Hoosier National Forest

While rearranging my old house for a remodeling project, I dug out a box containing the first environmental writing project I ever undertook, circa 1980. The handwritten, discolored label on the front of a tattered, faded-red folder reads: Charles C. Deam Wilderness Area on the first line and Hoosier National Forest on the next. In between a box identifies the contents as Research. Inside, three-ring fasteners secure 45 typewritten pages.
 
The box contains research for my 1985 final masters project at the IU School of Journalism: Clearcutting the Hoosier National Forest: Professional Forestry or Panacea? Its contents include newspaper and magazine articles; interview transcriptions; the original text of my masters project; multi-inch-thick Hoosier forest management plans; even correspondence with my academic advisor.
 
Thirty years after I penned those words – literally, the first drafts were long-hand – I am still focused on the Hoosier. Next May, we are organizing a series of events called Hoosier National Forest Awareness Month as Natural Bloomington's first project for 2014.
 
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Jan
01

2014: Griffy's a lake again, Natural Bloomington's on social media

Something just felt right about my first successful Facebook post beginning "Griffy Lake is a lake again." I saw the 109-acre lake was back on someone else's Facebook post, drove out there on Dec. 30 and shot a quick Natural Bloomington photo album to document the rejuvenation.
 
It's not that I'm new to social media. I've been plugged in since a couple summer interns set up accounts for me on Facebook and Myspace, back when the latter was still the SM network of choice. But for multiple reasons, I have never really engaged – until now. As 2014 dawns, Natural Bloomington has active, albeit nascent, presences on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram, with more coming soon.
 
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Nov
29

Talking ecotourism with the Indiana Forest Alliance

I don't recall what I was prattling on about when I led my neo-local guests a few miles out of our way along the back roads of Owen County on the shiny, frigid afternoon of Nov. 24. I'm sure it wasn't that ecotourism's conservation mission was one thing that attracted me to the field.
 
But that was one of the reasons I led Miles and Amara Lovato on a detour around a busted bridge a few miles west of Spencer. We were on our way to a meeting of the Indiana Forest Alliance (IFA), where we wanted to spread the word about Natural Bloomington' mission and reconnect with people I've known for 30-plus years but rarely see.
 
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