AN ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF FOREST MANAGEMENT ON

WILDLIFE USING MOTION SENSORED CAMERA TRAPS IN THE PINE

BARRENS
Shannon Keeney, Environmental Science Program, Stockton University, Galloway, New Jersey
08205

Catherine Tredick, Environmental Science Program, Stockton University, Galloway, New Jersey
08205

ABSTRACT

Stockton University’s Forest Management Plan was created in 2012 and has affected the wildlife
within the forest. Using motion sensored camera traps, we collected data on wildlife within
different areas of Stockton’s forest. We compared data from cameras in clearcut and prescribed
burn sites to cameras in unmanaged forests nearby. We evaluated species richness and calculated
Shannon’s Diversity Index (SDI) at each site. Our results suggest that clearcutting and prescribed
burns have negatively impacted the biodiversity on Stockton’s campus, at least in the short-term.
SDI in the clearcut was 0, with only deer present, compared to the nearby forest area (SDI =
0.9065). The burned area had an SDI of 0.0668, compared to an SDI of 0.0780 in the nearby,
intact forest. The management practices also impacted species at nearby sites as they were
happening. In order to better understand how Stockton’s Forest Management Plan affects
wildlife, this study will have to continue over a longer timeframe, and camera stations should be
added to areas that will be managed before the management takes place.

INTRODUCTION

Stockton University is located in New Jersey’s Pinelands, a unique pine-oak forest. In 2012,
Stockton University created a forest management plan. A forest management plan is a guide that
allows the owner to maximize the benefits a forest has to offer, including wildlife, timber,
recreation, and aesthetic value (Pennsylvania Forestry Association, 2016). The plan can have one
goal or it can balance all elements of a forest. The Stockton Forest Plan was created to make use
of the forest’s resources. The plan includes single tree and small group selection, clearcuts in
irregular shapes and leaving snags, commercial thinning, prescription fire, and shelterwood cuts
(Williams, 2012). This study focusses on a recent clearcut stand and prescribed burn.

The Pinelands is a fire prone area that poses a threat to life and property when fires become
catastrophic. The suppression of fire following the 1930s in the Pine Barrens has been harmful to
the pine species, pitch pine (Pinus rigida) and shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata), by creating
subclimax stands containing hardwoods and pines, and allowing for minimal pine regeneration.
Prescribed fire is used to emulate the natural process of fire. With fire reintroduction in the
Pinelands, oak species would die and pine species would survive. The fires would also create
seedbeds suitable for pine species. The subclimax habitat is more dangerous because the litter of
oak leaves in the forest creates more fuel on the forest floor and the absence of fire allows shrubs
to grow creating a vegetative ladder that reaches the crown of trees. Prescribed burns can help
prevent catastrophic crown fires because it reduces the amount of fuel and it destroys the vertical
and horizontal continuity. The burns would also slowly bring pine species back, which in turn
will reduce the amount of leaves on the ground from oak trees (Little and Moore, 1949).

Stockton University’s forest is mostly even-aged throughout; this can be dangerous if there is an
insect or disease outbreak. The campus is even-aged because most of it was used as farmland and
for the production of forest products since the 1600s (Williams, 2012). Forest thinning,
clearcutting, and other silvicultural methods can promote variable-aged forests and reduce the
risk of catastrophic pest outbreaks. Clearcutting is a method that removes all of the trees and
creates an early-successional even-aged forest. This is beneficial when an owner wants to create
a mosaic of different age classes by clearcutting at different ages. Forest thinning is the removal
of suppressed and intermediate crowned trees to promote the growth of larger trees. Shelterwood
cut is the removal of some trees in a stand to provide room for new regeneration by manipulating
the overstory species composition. Single tree and group selection cutting is the removal of trees
from different age classes randomly throughout a stand to make it uneven in age (State of
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 2004).

Forest management affects wildlife populations by altering plant cover, food availability, and
useable space. All management practices can create a level of fragmentation that will affect
different species in different ways. Prescribed burns can be harmful to species that need a dense
understory while it is recovering. Prescribed burns can increase the quality and quantity of forage
because of the rapid regrowth of vegetation The vegetation after a fire recovers quickly and
white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) favor this vegetation for foraging within one year
following the fire (Dees et al., 2001). Gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) and coyotes (Canis
latrans) benefit from prescribed fire because of the increase in soft mast (Keyser et al., 2015).
This is also beneficial to species that can utilize the sparse understory during recovery, such as
Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) and wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), but may
negatively affect species such as eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) because they prefer
habitats with dense understory (University of Michigan, 2014).

Silviculture practices like clearcuts and thinning allow more direct sunlight to reach the forest
floor, which allows for more understory growth. Clearcutting provides new growth of forage for
herbivores that begins a year following the cut and lasts up to 20 years (Bolen and Robinson,
2003). It will create habitat for different species because of the new microclimates that are
created. While clearcutting destroys cover for species inhabiting the area and is harmful to
species that need dense trees, it is beneficial to species that need a habitat with shrubby growth
and large openings (Bolen and Robinson, 2003). Clearcutting will benefit species like white-
tailed deer because of the new growth and forage it will provide. It might benefit coyotes if the
clearcut remains early successional habitat (University of Michigan, 2014). Clearcuts will
negatively affect gray fox, Virginia opossum, eastern gray squirrel, and wild turkey because it
will all destroy cover that they require (University of Michigan, 2014). Thinning results in a mid
to late successional overstory and allows the understory to grow (Warnell School of Forestry and
Natural Resources, 2016). This management practice will benefit species that use habitats with a
dense understory in forested areas, like white-tailed deer, gray fox, raccoons (Procyon lotor), and
eastern gray squirrel. Forest thinnings will be harmful to species that need an open understory
like coyotes, Virginia opossums, and wild turkeys (University of Michigan, 2014).

This study used camera traps to capture wildlife in the forest and determine impacts of forest
management practices on these species. Camera traps capture animals in images that are
triggered by movement. Cameras can be left in the field for a long period of time, sometimes
over six months, reducing the amount of human disturbance in the study area. Camera traps are a
non-invasive method of researching wildlife species in many habitats, even habitats that are
inaccessible. This method minimizes the stress on wildlife compared to other research methods.
They are also able to run all day and night, allowing for the capture of nocturnal and elusive
species. Camera traps collect quantitative data with time stamps that can be used to determine
behavior patterns, occupancy, co-occupancy, range, habitat selection, population, richness and
distribution of a species (McCallum, 2013). This particular study is of species richness at five
camera trap stations and the impact Stockton’s Forest Plan has had on the wildlife. The impact of
the management plan will be determined by which species are present at which camera station
and the capture frequency of each species. This is used to help us understand whether species
prefer managed or unmanaged forest and how they respond to these management practices.

METHODS

We used motion sensored camera traps to capture wildlife species present in a variety of areas on
Stockton University’s campus. We established cameras on a clearcut area and a prescribed burn
area following treatment, and compared data from these cameras to data from cameras in nearby
areas that resemble the pre-managed conditions (e.g., similar tree composition and density,
distance from a water source, etc.). The clearcut camera data was compared to a single camera
nearby (Control 1; C1), while the prescribed burn camera data was compared to two other nearby
cameras stations (C2 and C3). (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Location of motion-sensored cameras used to monitor wildlife across forests of Stockton
University. The red dots represent the location of the burn and clearcut camera stations. The blue dots
represent the location of the control cameras used for comparison.

We collected data from all cameras from March 8 to September 10, 2016 for a total of 187 trap
nights. We collected data from the 3 control cameras from March 8 to September 10, 2015 as
well, for a total of 187 additional trap nights. Camera C3 died in mid-June 2015 so the data for
2015 is not complete but it was still used in some analysis.

We filtered data before the analysis to exclude images of the same species at the same camera
within 1 hour because the species did not have individual markers to allow for identification.
This was also done to ensure that the captures were independent (Tobler et al., 2008). The only
exception from this filtering was for white-tailed deer when the individual was identified as
buck, fawn, or doe. For example, if the first individual that was captured was a buck, fawn, or
doe and the second individual was identified as the opposite sex or a different age, the images
were kept for analysis.

We calculated the capture frequency for each species as the number of total pictures/trap night.
Camera C3 was excluded from this analysis due to incomplete data. Capture frequency can give
a relative abundance of species but it does not take into account species-specific behavior
(Tobler et al., 2008). We calculated Shannon’s Diversity Index (SDI= Σ(pi*ln(pi)) at each
camera station using the total number of occurrences for each species. It is important to note that
this is not representative of population densities at each site, but provides a reasonable index of
the proportion of species occurrences for each site (Tobler et al., 2008).

RESULTS

We captured 7 species across all 5 camera sites: coyote, white-tailed deer, gray fox, Virginia
opossum, raccoon, eastern gray squirrel, and wild turkey. In 2015, we collected 1488 images at
the C1 and C2 stations, capturing 6 of the 7 species of interest. The only species we did not
capture was coyote. In 2016 all camera stations collected 6442 images capturing all species of
interest. The most common species captured across all camera stations was white-tailed deer
(Tables 1 and 2). We only captured coyotes twice during the study period at the C1 and C3
camera stations.

Species Common Name Clearcut 2016 C1 2015 C1 2016

Canis latrans Coyote 0 0 0.016
Cinereoargenteus Gray fox 0 0.048 1.562
Didelphis virginiana Virginia opossum 0 0.144 0.369
Meleagris gallopavo Wild turkey 0 0 0
Odocoileus virginianus White-tailed deer 3.802 6.594 7.556
Procyon lotor Raccoon 0 0.032 0.064
Sciurus carolinensis Gray squirrel 0 0 0.016
Table 1: The capture frequency (number of photos/187 trap days) for all species captured.

Species Common Name Burn 2016 C2 2015 C2 2016 C3 2016

Canis latrans Coyote 0 0 0 0.016
Cinereoargenteus Gray fox 0.032 0 0 0
Didelphis virginiana Virginia opossum 0 0 0 0
Meleagris gallopavo Wild turkey 0 0 0 0.096
Odocoileus virginianus White-tailed deer 8.198 3.652 7.358 5.342
Procyon lotor Raccoon 0 0 0 0
Sciurus carolinensis Gray squirrel 0 0.016 0.032 0
Table 2: The capture frequency (number of photos/187 trap days) for all species captured. Data for the
camera C3 in 2015 was not included in this analysis because the camera died mid-June 2015.

The most commonly captured species were white-tailed deer and gray fox. White-tailed deer
were captured at every camera station and the amount of captures was greater than any other
species. The second most common species captured was the gray fox, which was only captured
at two camera stations. The amount of fox occurrences at C1 was substantially greater in 2016
compared to 2015 (Figure 2).
 Occurrence of Deer by Station

120

100

80
Occurence

60

40

20

0
Clearcut 2016 C1 2015 C1 2016 Burn 2016 C2 2015 C2 2016 C3 2016
Camera Station

Occurrence of Fox by Station

40

35

30

25
Occurence

20

15

10

0
Clearcut 2016 C1 2015 C1 2016 Burn 2016 C2 2015 C2 2016 C3 2016
Camera Station

Figure 2: Number of occurrences of white-tailed deer and gray fox across all camera stations.

There were 22 different days during the study that multiple species were captured on the same
camera in the same day. Most of these occurred in 2016 at C1, and consisted mainly of deer and
one other species (e.g., Virginia opossum, gray fox, wild turkey, and raccoon). The most
common species captured together in the same day were gray fox and white-tailed deer.
Multiple species were captured in the same day at the burn station and C3 camera. The occasion
at C3, a white-tailed deer and a wild turkey were captured in the same images.

We only observed one species at the clearcut site, white-tailed deer, resulting in no diversity in
that treatment area. Nearby site C1 had an SDI of 0.2973 in 2015 and a much higher SDI of
0.9065 in 2016. The burn station had a fairly low SDI of 0.0668 in 2016. Nearby site C2 had
similar SDIs (0.0652 in 2015 and 0.0780 in 2016), while site C3 had slightly higher (though still
relatively low) SDIs both years (0.3557 and 0.2088 in 2015 and 2016, respectively) (Figure 3).

Shannon's Diversity Index by Station

0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
SDI

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Clearcut C1 2015 C1 2016 Burn 2016 C2 2015 C2 2016 C3 2015 C3 2016
2016
Camera Station

Figure 3: Shannon’s Diversity Index (SDI) by the camera station and the year.

DISCUSSION

Our results demonstrate the variation in species composition between managed and control sites
on Stockton’s campus. The managed sites created new habitats that are not suitable for some
species, possibly shifting animals out of those areas and into ones that fit their needs. The
clearcut site seemed to have created a habitat that only white-tailed deer utilize, at least in the
short-term. Based on data from nearby Site C1, the clearcut site likely had a wide variety of
species before treatment, including, gray fox, Virginia opossum, raccoon, eastern gray squirrel,
and coyote. The clearcutting created an early-successional habitat that is not preferred by most of
these species, however, leaving it suitable primarily for deer (University of Michigan, 2014). The
prescribed burn created a habitat that was used primarily by white-tailed deer and gray fox.
Based on data from nearby Sites C2 and C3, the burn site might have been used by a more
diverse suite of species, including wild turkey, eastern gray squirrel, and coyote prior to
treatment. The burning operation created sparse understory vegetation with a dense overstory,
however, and based on the needs of the species we captured, we were surprised to see such a low
diversity at the prescribed burn station (University of Michigan, 2014).

We also found that some of the variations in species diversity may be attributed to human
activities. SDI at C1 in 2016 was much greater than the SDI in 2015. This may be due to the
clearcutting operations that occurred in the summer of 2015. All of the species were disrupted
during the clearcutting operations as the capture frequency of all species at C1 was less in 2015
than in 2016. Clearcutting may have shifted species to using undisturbed forest surrounding the
managed region, explaining the increase in SDI at C1 after the operations. In addition, a new
road and parking lot were built during the spring and summer of 2016 near C3, and the SDI
decreased from 2015 to 2016. This could possibly be a result of these human activities on
campus.

This study was limited to a four-month period at the treatment cameras, limiting the inferences
we can make regarding impacts of these forest treatments on wildlife. In addition, we were
unable to set up cameras at the treatment sites prior to treatment, forcing us to use cameras near
the treatment cameras instead of looking at the same site before and after the treatment. Thus,
conclusions related to changes in wildlife occurrence are not as concrete. In order to have a
better understanding of how Stockton’s Forest Plan will affect the wildlife that inhabits the
forest, these studies will need to be conducted over a longer timeframe, and cameras should be
set up well before management practices take place.

IMPLICATIONS FOR WILDLIFE IN STOCKTON’S FOREST

Stockton’s Forest Plan is a ten-year plan with a variety of management practices that include:
prescribed burning, single tree and group selection, thinning, pruning, conservation and study,
clearcutting, and shelterwood (Williams, 2012). These management practices will alter the
habitat, which will alter the species present because it will change the food resources, cover, and
usable space. We have demonstrated how clearcutting and prescribed burning in a pine-oak
forest will affect the species present. Our results show that clearcutting and prescribed burns
have reduced species diversity in treatment areas, at least in the short-term. Our study found that
only white-tailed deer used the clearcut, but nearby site C1 was the most diverse station in this
study, capturing gray fox, coyote, Virginia opossum, raccoon, gray squirrel, and white-tailed
deer. There are plans to clearcut other areas on Stockton’s forest, potentially increasing the
occurrence of white-tailed deer in these areas. Results from this study suggest that clearcutting
activities substantially reduced species diversity in these areas, and many late successional
species, like gray fox, eastern gray squirrel, coyote, and raccoon, were no longer observed
following the cut. The study will have to continue to see if the species composition in the
clearcut will change as time passes and vegetation grows, and nearby forests should be managed
and monitored to promote habitat for these other species.
White-tailed deer and occasionally gray foxes used the prescribed burn site. Areas of Stockton’s
forest are on different fire intervals, and care must be taken to carefully monitor wildlife
populations as these sites recover and are treated again. Our results suggest that early-
successional species such as white-tailed deer and gray foxes are most likely to use newly burned
areas, while late-successional species such as wild turkey, coyote, and gray squirrel (seen at
nearby sites) will potentially move in as vegetation grows and habitat is regenerated. The study
will have to continue to see how species composition changes as the fire management regime,
including multiple burns over different intervals, continues. This study has demonstrated how
influential forest management practices can be because of how greatly it changes the forest,
creating a mosaic of habitats to support the diversity of wildlife found in these areas.

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