Working for a

better forest

Local conservation groups plant trees

on K.C. Road

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM - Just a few miles outside of New Ulm on K.C. Road lay acres of forest that were once farmland.

These days, many local conservation groups are looking to put those acres back into circulation as a wildlife habitat and people like Kurt Haroldson and Don Wendell say they want to help.

For the past nine years, Haroldson, habitat project coordinator for the Izaak Walton League's Brown County chapter, and Wendell, who is president of the local chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, have been a part of an annual effort made by local conservation groups to restore or upgrade parcels of public land that are considered habitat for many different kinds of waterfowl.

The job involves some fundraising from within the ranks of the respective organizations, some planning months in advance and plenty of volunteers with plenty of time and plenty of tools.

On Saturday, volunteers from both groups loaded up their shovels, donned their grubs and headed out to a one-acre piece of land just north of K.C. Road to help plant trees and fruiting shrubs.

Earlier in the year, members of the National Wild Turkey Federation raised about $3,000 for the project, which actually cost about $1,500. Last year's project, which is only a little ways west of this year's site, was funded jointly by that group and the Izaak Walton League.

Saturday's work started at 9 a.m. and wrapped up around 2 p.m. It went shorter than Haroldson said he expected because 20 volunteers showed up to work when only 10 were anticipated. The work was also sped by a donated front-end loader and a power auger, he said.

"It's the joy of working with volunteers," Haroldson said. "I don't want to complain, but maybe it was because of the nice day. A lot of people didn't ask; they just showed up. But we were happy to see them and it was a nice day, too. It was a nice day to do something."

Habitat restoration projects are something of an annual ritual for the two groups. Their memberships overlap and they have collaborated together and with other conservation groups on similar projects in the past.

The parcels of land are located each year through the DNR's wildlife management office in New Ulm. Like many projects before it, the public land that this year's project is on is often used to hunt deer, wild turkeys, pheasants, ducks and geese.

The clubs first began working on habitat restoration projects in 1997, when an estimated 3,000 trees were planted in a day on the Cottonwood River near Sleepy Eye, Wendell said. He estimates that volunteers have planted roughly 12,000 trees in those seven years.

Saturday's work started after the ground was marked with spray paint to show where the trees should be planted. Holes were drilled with the auger, into which a seedling was placed, followed by a mat to keep weeds down. Tubes were wrapped around the young trees to keep deer from eating them and the saplings were tied to stakes to keep them upright until their roots penetrate further down into the soil.

Haroldson said both groups tried to find a weekend when there were no hunting or fishing openers, since most of their members either fish or hunt.

"It's hard to get help on a fishing day," he said.