Sweet Water Trust owns land and conservation easements in New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. From 2003-2005, SWT Stewardship Ecologist Kevin Caldwell created Baseline Documentation reports for each preserve. Kevin bushwhacked and documented with GPS points and photographs the boundaries of these lands in their entirety, totaling almost 50,000 acres and many hundreds of miles. This degree of scrutiny revealed potential management issues as well as much field observation of wildlife.

In September 2005 Conservation Biologist Chris Wilson joined the staff as Director of Stewardship. Chris has established a field office in Vermont, and is in the process of designing and conducting long-term monitoring protocols for each preserve. He also began the first of a series of community outreach and education initiatives in partnership with Keeping Track, Inc. at our Pioneer Lake Preserve in Stoddard, New Hampshire. To learn more about this citizen science wildlife monitoring team, please see the link on our home page.

NEW YORK

Shingle Shanty Preserve, Webb & Long Lake

Spruce Grouse, Sedge Meadows, Osprey, Bears, Bears, Bears…

The 15,536-acre Shingle Shanty Preserve is securely nestled in nearly 1 million acres of forever wild state and private lands in the western Adirondacks. The Preserve bridges the gap between the Pigeon Lakes and Five Ponds Wilderness Areas to the west and north and the historic Brandreth Park, Lake Lila Primitive Area, and the Whitney Canoe Area to the east.

As part of a 26,500-acre acquisition from International Paper, The Nature Conservancy of New York purchased the Preserve in 2001. Sweet Water Trust acquired a conservation easement to protect the Preserve as wild in December 2003. Portions of the historic rail line through Brandreth Station and the 1800’s “Military Road” – the first road through the Adirondacks – are within the Preserve boundaries. Within its matrix of high elevation Spruce-fir and Northern Hardwood forests, water resources are a showpiece. Over 2400 acres of forested, shrub, and emergent wetlands flank seven remote ponds, all but one have breeding loon and waterfowl populations. Rare natural areas are found throughout the Preserve including the extremely rare Sedge Meadows (found in less than five locations statewide), Dwarf Shrub Bogs, Black Spruce-Tamarack Bogs, Marsh Headwater Streams, Shrub Swamps, and a single Oligotrophic Pond. Nine of the ten miles of Shingle Shanty Stream are contained onsite – over 100 oxbows define this waterway before draining in to Lake Lila. The Preserve contains 40-50 miles of headwater streams feeding the Beaver and Moose River watersheds.

A formal biological inventory of the Preserve has yet to be completed. However, members of the Brandreth and Potter families, who retain hunting, fishing and recreational rights on the Preserve, some of whom have roamed this land for most of their lives, have documented over 250 animal and plant species, and have identified 12 rare bird species including Spruce Grouse, Bald Eagles, Ospreys, American Bittern, and numerous hawks. Future studies of potential old growth forest that Sweet Water Trust mapped in 2004, will illuminate the character of the older forests found here. Moose – estimated at less than 150 individuals in the Adirondack Region – are slowly returning; their sign was observed within the Preserve during monitoring inspections throughout 2004.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Pioneer Lake Preserve, Stoddard

Old growth, bobcat, fisher, mink, otter, loons…

The 6,000-acre Pioneer Lake Preserve, part of a 22,000-acre tapestry of protected lands owned by Sweet Water Trust, The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests (SPNHF), the New Hampshire Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, Audubon Society of New Hampshire, and private citizens, is located in the heart of the Monadnock Highlands region of southwestern New Hampshire.

In 1994 Sweet Water Trust purchased the 733-acre Pioneer Lake Preserve to fill a hole in the surrounding land owned by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, thereby securing an unbroken block of more than 4,700-acres in conservation ownership. SWT and SPNHF exchanged temporary deed restrictions with each other while an ecological assessment and inventory of the whole preserve was being conducted that would help inform the permanentconservation easement.

The study was conducted by Dr. Rick Van De Poll, then of Antioch New England Graduate School (now Principal of Ecosystem Management, Inc.). Surveys of vegetation, reptiles, amphibians and vernal pools, small, medium and large fur-bearing mammals, birds, and old growth forest documented a minimum of 387 animal and 451 plant species, excluding non-vascular plants and fungi. Further work – particularly of the surrounding old growth and the apparent avoidance behavior of mammals on trails and areas frequented by snowmobiles - remains.

We are currently finishing the management plan and permanent conservation easements. Repairs to the dam at Pioneer Lake began in the winter of 2000 and were completed in the winter of 2002, with a hiatus each spring and summer to minimize any disturbance to wildlife, especially the nesting loons that seasonally call the Preserve their home.

For the past decade, we have continued to work with SPNHF, The Nature Conservancy and other local partners to expand the Preserve. The 835-acre Lovern’s Mill Atlantic White Cedar Swamp in Antrim and the 276-acre Harriman property in Stoddard – the former in partnership with the State and neighboring landowners – were added in 1998 and 1999 respectively. Over the last several years we have also worked with TNC and private landowners to create the nearby 1,700-acre Otter Brook Preserve, adjacent to the 12,000-acre Andorra Forest and in close proximity to the 955-acre Allison Nims Piper Forest. Linking the Preserve to other conservation areas in the vicinity remains a high priority. With NH Audubon and the Harris Center lands to the south of the Preserve and 15,000-acres of contiguous conserved land to the west, there is tremendous potential for landscape level conservation.

Vickie Bunnell Preserve, Stratford

Pine Marten, Bicknell’s Thrush, Old Growth, Rare Orchids, Brook Trout…

The rugged, mountainous 10,500-acre Vickie Bunnell Preserve near Colebrook is owned by The Nature Conservancy with conservation easements held by the State of New Hampshire and Sweet Water Trust. The Preserve is named in commemoration of the late Vickie Bunnell, a former local judge and daughter of Earl and Irene Bunnell of Canaan, Vermont, who tragically lost her life with five others in 1997. Vickie came to know the area as a hunter, angler and extensive explorer of untold miles of this remote area. The Preserve lies in the heart of the Blue Mountain-Nash Stream Matrix Block – a relatively unfragmented forest exceeding 100,000-acres with the Nash Stream State Forest to the Southeast. Other conservation groups safeguarding land within this area include the New England Forestry Foundation and SPNHF.

Unusual in shape, the Preserve boundary was designed with narrow “bottlenecks” of land connecting three larger forested areas in order to maintain existing state snowmobile trails while having the least impact from the exhaust fumes, noise and high speeds of snowmobiles on vegetation and wildlife: snowmobiles pass through the bottlenecks and not through the center of the Preserve. The tract lends an additional 15 square miles of high quality wildlife habitat protection to a region that lies at the crossroads of the White Mountain National Forest, protected lands west of the Connecticut River Basin including the West Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Vermont, the Lake Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge, Dartmouth College’s Second College Grant lands, and the Connecticut Lakes Region to the north – a vast area rich in wildlife habitat diversity.

© Jerry and Marcy Monkman/Eco Photography. The Vicki Bunnell Preserve is owned by The Nature Conservancy, with conservation easements running to the State of New Hampshire and Sweet Water Trust.

The Preserve contains exemplary high elevation balsam fir and spruce-fir forests that are considered the best remaining example of this forest type north of the White Mountains. Northern hardwood forests co-dominate; wetlands are uncommon. In 2002, 4,000-acres of high quality mature and old growth forest were documented by Charlie Cogbill, the premier old growth sleuth of the Northeast. The 3,723-foot Bunnell Mountain and 12 other peaks above 3,000 feet in elevation lie within its borders, as well as 28 miles of streams, the Cranberry Bog wetland complex, and several rocky outcrop cliffs provide potential Peregrine Falcon habitat. Cliff areas are typically surrounded by old growth forest remnants that escaped logging due to topography; such areas offering glimpses of what forest conditions might have looked like prior to European settlement. The remaining 6,000-acres of forest is relatively young and recovering from intensive industrial forestry practices of the 1990’s.

Biological resources of the Preserve were documented during onsite ‘bio-blitzes’ in 2001 and 2002 and include a total of 369 vascular and non-vascular plants and 105 wildlife species. Twenty-two species of plants and animals, including Pine Marten, Northern Red-belly Dace, Black-backed Woodpecker, and Bicknell’s Thrush. Rare plants such as the Lily-leaf Twayblade, Green-bracted orchis, Yellow-rattle, Boreal Bentgrass, and Millet grasses are found here.

MAINE

Alder Stream Preserve, Dover-Foxcroft, Atkinson, Milo

Northern goshawks, wood turtles, bitterns and bear…

As with the Pioneer Lake Preserve, the 12,000-acre Alder Stream Preserve in central Maine is a tapestry of lands, public and private. The Preserve itself is mostly private land protected as wild with conservation easements held by SWT, as well as land we own. The Preserve is characterized by wetland complexes interspersed with Spruce-fir, smaller areas of Northern White Cedar Swamp, Maple-Ash-Basswood (cove), and Northern Hardwood forests. Extensive biological inventories depict a diverse biological portrait of this land including 370 plant, 122 bird, 20 fish, 27 mammal and 17 amphibian and reptile species. Dr. Stephen Trombulak of Middlebury College, with field researcher Tamara Enz, collected field data for two years and in 1999 compiled the data into comprehensive natural community GIS maps, site design and management plans for the Preserve.

Preserve Manager, George Bakajza, a wetland scientist, consultant and local resident, has worked since then to implement the management recommendations. An avid outdoorsman, George manages a hunting program on the Preserve to keep the white-tailed deer population in check. He has also worked with the American Chestnut Society in an attempt to re-introduce this once-dominant tree to the landscape. Continuing biological inventory work and GIS mapping, George and Kevin Caldwell posted signs on sections of the 100-mile perimeter of the Preserve while documenting its ecological condition. We continue to add new parcels to the Preserve, and to strengthen community relations.