Calendar

Lecture begins at 7pm
Questions and Networking hosted by Friends of the Pine Bush Community 8pm-8:30pm

IN PERSON: If you would like to attend in person, please reserve your tickets below.

VIRTUAL: If you would like to watch it online, please click here to get a link.

Fire is the heartbeat of pyrogenic ecosystems, but attempting to restore ecosystem dynamics and endangered wildlife habitat by simply applying what we know of post-colonial disturbance regimes can be logistically challenging and ecologically ineffective. This is especially true for those of us managing systems, like inland pitch pine-scrub oak barrens (PPSOB), for which there are not any fully “functional” reference communities available to guide our work. The Albany Pine Bush Preserve (APBP) contains one of the best remaining examples of an inland PPSOB and habitat for >70 of NY State’s 366 wildlife species of greatest conservation need, including the federally endangered Karner blue (Plebejus samuelis). Since 1991, APBP managers have employed a variety of strategies (cutting, mowing, burning, and herbicides) to restore fire’s fundamental role. Limited ecological success and extreme fire behavior presented significant early challenges and resulted in a paradigm shift in our understanding of PPSOB ecosystem dynamics. It also revealed important clues about restoration and maintenance fire regimes, the latter more likely indicative of precolonial indigenous fire that supported the system for millennia.  Applying a dual front approach while simultaneously tracking rare wildlife populations has helped us define and monitor ecosystem health. It has also resulted in increased distribution and abundance of rare wildlife - including the complete recovery of the local Karner population and the return of the Eastern Whip-poor-will, while dramatically reducing wildfire risk and improving prescribed fire logistics in a congested and politically complicated wildland urban interface at the NYS Capital District.


Neil Gifford is the Conservation Director and lead scientist for the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission, and a community representative on the North Atlantic Fire Science Exchange, with 26+ years of fire ecology and Rx fire experience. He earned associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees in Ecology and Environmental Science from Paul Smith’s College, and Plattsburgh State University, with an emphasis on fire ecology and field ornithology. 

Suitable for tweens, teens and adults.

This lecture is being offered in a hybrid format.

IN PERSON: If you would like to attend in person, please reserve your tickets below.

VIRTUAL: If you would like to watch it online, please click here to get a link.