Cooperative Agreement Between the United States Department of the Interior and the Vermont Institute of Natural Science - Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller-National Historical Park
United States Department of the Interior and Vermont Institute of Natural Science. 2003. Cooperative Agreement Between the United States Department of the Interior and the Vermont Institute of Natural Science - Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller-National Historical Park
The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park (MABI) is the only national park to focus on conservation history and the evolving nature of land stewardship in America. Opened in June of 1996, Vermont's first national park preserves and interprets the historic 555-acre Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller property in Woodstock. The National Park Service (NPS) plans to operate the forest as a working landscape with educational forestry demonstrations, exhibits, and sustainable forestry practices. To attain these goals, a forest management plan is being developed for the park. In order to help guide the development of this plan, park managers need comprehensive information about the biological resources that occur within the park and how management practices might affect the status and distribution of these resources. Currently, the final year of fieldwork on a two-year inventory of amphibian and reptile populations within the park is being concluded. To complement the amphibian and reptile inventory, detailed information about the breeding bird population within the MABI is needed. Breeding bird populations have not been systematically surveyed by the NPS or previous landowners, and very little anecdotal information exists on the status and distribution of bird species within the park. The largely forested 555-acre park ranges from approximately 700 to 1450 feet in elevation, and supports mature northern hardwood and mixed forests, conifer plantations, cliff/rocky outcrop communities, and open fields maintained by both snowing and light grazing. In addition, there is a 15-acre pond, a stream, and several small forested wetlands and seeps. To help lay the groundwork necessary for park managers to make informed decisions about forest management within the park, and to formulate effective monitoring strategies for the future, a quantitative assessment of breeding bird populations on the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP is needed.
- Type
- Generic Document
- Authors
- United States Department of the Interior; Vermont Institute of Natural Science
- Date of Issue
- 2003
- Units
- MABI
- Keywords
- Bird Study, Breeding Birds, Inventory, MABI, Monitoring, SAGA, Vermont Institute of Natural Science