Wildlife Habitat Conservation Is On Tap In Burke
“I’m not just talking about doing this for the sake of the bears.”
— Jens Hilke, Vermont Fish and Wildlife department
By Amy Ash Nixon
Staff Writer
BURKE — Planning the town’s future, which includes human development at Burke Mountain and in
other locations in town, around the needs of wildlife is something town officials are looking at carefully.
Members of the Burke Conservation Commission and Burke Planning Commission attended a natural
resources workshop at which they heard from Jens Hilke, a Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department
conservation planning biologist.
“I’m not just talking about doing this for the sake of the bears,” said Hilke, talking about the importance of
leaving large tracts of contiguous open space in town for wildlife
habitat. “I’m talking about doing this for our own sake.”
Unlike some parts of Canada, where the government is building overpasses for animals to move across
human development, including highways, Hilke said Burke and the Northeast Kingdom are relatively
unspoiled and the focus needs to be on is “maintaining something we already do … we need to maintain
this network that we have.”
Values shared by the people inhabiting the town, when talked about, tend to find common ground that
center around the unspoiled nature of the region, said Hilke.
“What do you love about your town? Why you live here … we don’t talk about that enough,” he said.
“When we do, we start to realize how much commonality there is.“
People want to see special areas saved for recreational enjoyment, for hunting and biking, and hiking,
Hilke said. Looking at the community and its open space as a whole can help to begin what he called “a
goal setting process.” “What towns people want is a great starting point,” he said. Hilke said there is “an
incredible amount of data that’s out there – vast amounts of data at the statewide scale – made for all of
Vermont” for planning purposes. To protect habitat and open space, there are both regulatory and nonregulatory tools at the town’s disposal, he said.
Burke Planning Commission Chairman Al Duey said wildlife planning was recommended by Northeastern
Vermont Development Association. The work is designed to help the planning commission learn about
options for protecting the town’s natural resources. Duey said protecting Burke’s natural resources is
usually one of the top concerns at planning meetings within the community and from community surveys.
“It was suggested that the planning commission and conservation commission have a joint meeting to
determine what could be done to identify and map Burke’s natural elements, such as contiguous and
connecting wildlife habitats, wetlands, vernal pools, rare and threatened species, mast stands, deer
wintering areas, various animal habitats and early succession forests,” Duey said. “Hopefully, such a
meeting can be scheduled soon.
“Much of the collection of this information could be accomplished with community volunteers with possible
assistance from an experienced professional,” he said “The information would be used to help with future
land use planning.”
“The more you isolate and fragment a habitat block, the fewer species you’re going to have,” Hilke said.
The NEK has the most undeveloped land in Vermont, some 153,000 acres, he said. “These are massive
forest blocks. These are the biggest forest blocks in Vermont … these house an incredible amount of
wildlife diversity – species with big home ranges to move around.
“There is a lot of biological diversity in these blocks,” he said, pointing to maps of the state and the NEK.
“The blocks, as we move west, drop dramatically in size,” Hilke said. “We should be asking ourselves, are
these blocks completely isolated? Closer together means it’s more likely that wildlife are moving from
block to block – even though bears require a huge amount of acreage or bob cat, they can utilize multiple
blocks if we haven’t completely isolated them … we can have small blocks as long as they remain
connected to these bigger blocks.”
Black bear need 10 to 20,000 acres, moose 1,280 to 12,800 acres, river otter 15 to 30 linear miles of
stream, according to Hilke. They move around at different times of the year to get what they need to
survive, he said.
Humans can help by installing culverts that permit wildlife – from fish to rodents and other species – to
move through the water, said Hilke. He said climate change also is occurring, and impacting species in
Vermont.
There is a project Vermont is involved in to work on inter-state wildlife habitat conservation with New
Hampshire, Maine and New York, as well as provinces in Canada, Hilke said. “Connectivity is the key to
maintaining these populations,” he said. “Your town is important from the standpoint of regional habitat
connectivity, not only for the reasons you love it, but also for the larger [habitat] connectivity reasons.”