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| The mission of Great Mountain Forest is to be a leader in forest stewardship. We practice sustainable forest management, promote biodiversity and resilience to climate change, support education and research, and welcome all who love the woods. | |
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Conversation with the New Ed
Return of the American Chestnut
Breeding Season for Bobcats
GMF’s 78th Sugaring Season
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Conversation with the New Ed
Outgoing interim executive director Heather Thomson talked with the incoming permanent ED Mike Zarfos this past weekend. Some excerpts from their conversation follow.
HT: I grew up in a family that hiked, camped, canoed and fished. How did you get introduced to the out-of-doors?
MZ: I grew up on the edge of a "hundred acre wood" in Deep River Connecticut. One of my mother's early joys with me was going on nature walks where we would collect random object like leaves, seeds, and sticks and bring them home to glue onto large sheets of paper for inspection. Our neighborhood didn't have many kids in it, so I grew up spending a lot of time exploring the woods, painting it with my imagination. When I finally attended a nature-focused summer camp in town - Bushy Hill - I knew I had found my community. We spent a lot of time hiking, jumping into muddy ponds to catch water snakes, and eventually learning how to live off the land, making fire by friction, debris huts, and food, rope, and tools out of plants.
HT: Then academically, I went small in cellular biology, and you went big with ecosystems. How did that happen for you?
MZ: Well, I went to Colby College intending to be an English major, but ended up doubling in Biology and Global Studies. My bio major was basically an ecology major because I took as many of those macro-scale classes as I could. I discovered I already knew many of the critters and plants we would need to learn in our ecology courses from my time at Bushy Hill. I had spent thousands of hours in the woods as a kid and so ecology ended up making a lot of sense to me. It applied definitions to patterns and processes I had encountered in those early years, adding a depth of meaning to a world that I loved for all it had given me. After college, I continued to pursue ecology, studying seabirds in the Gulf of Maine and salt marsh ecosystems in Long Island Sound. I came to realize that to advance in the field I would need a graduate degree. I ended up pursuing a PhD in what was basically forest ecosystem science, investigating potential beech-maple-birch forest responses to anthropogenic environmental change in the Adirondack Mountains.
|  | Mike makes a beeline for the maps in the GMF office. | |
HT: What made you want to take the job with GMF?
MZ: There are a number of things about GMF that I find exciting. The organization and the people who made it possible - particularly the Childs and Walcott families - has restored thousands of acres of land, creating a foundation for broader impact. GMF translated restoration into opportunities for the local community, future foresters, and scientists. It has tremendous potential to grow its impact in these and related areas for example by catalyzing nature education, scientific discovery, and sustainable forest management beyond its borders in the face of climate and other environmental changes. Working on local conservation and community engagement, providing educational opportunities, and conducting or supporting research are three pursuits that have given me great joy throughout my career. So there is a natural alignment between the work that gives me joy and the areas where GMF has been making and can grow its impact. What sealed the deal for me though is the community around and within GMF. My interview process revealed a talented and passionate staff and board - a team that will be fun to work with and which has the skill and dedication to make GMF's potential a reality. Norfolk and the surrounding towns too contain myriad opportunities to give back and to continue building a basis of diverse support for GMF's mission.
HT: People who think that GMF is sitting around watching trees grow clearly don’t know much about the organization. What would you like to focus on first?”
MZ: Well, GMF's mission is to "be a leader in forest stewardship... practice sustainable forest management, promote biodiversity and resilience to climate change, support education and research, and welcome all who love the woods." What I take from that and from my conversations with the staff and board, is that GMF should be delivering impactful programs that support 1) public enjoyment of forests, 2) research that helps us understand forests and strategies to adapt them to climate change, 3) management that balances carbon sequestration with the interests of neighboring communities and biodiversity, and 4) opportunities to educate the public, future forestry professionals, and ecologists. I am going to start by talking to the staff, board, and local and regional communities and organizations to identify gaps that GMF can fill in these areas and where momentum already exists within the organization. I plan to pursue that low hanging fruit immediately as we consider other complex and long term opportunities to pursue. Ultimately, whatever GMF is doing, I want it to be thought of as a leader in those pursuits within Connecticut and the broader Northeast. I also want GMF to be seen as a partner to other environmental organizations working in forest conservation, research, and education.
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Return of the American Chestnut Part 2 | |
The 1947 Robbins Pitch chestnut plantation at GMF | |
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The effort by individuals, institutions, and agencies to reintroduce the American chestnut to Eastern forests speaks to just how valued chestnut trees have been. While government- supported programs have been widespread, the largest U.S. repository of chestnut genetic material is in Connecticut, thanks to the early efforts of Arthur Graves, who planted Asian chestnuts he procured from the USDA on his family’s land in southern Connecticut in 1930. The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station started collaborating with Graves in 1939, and the 8-acre chestnut plantation is now part of Sleeping Giant State Park, where the project continues with the cooperation of park rangers.
Great Mountain Forest became one of the sites chosen by the USDA office in Beltsville, MD for hybridization and grafting efforts, and the Robbins Pitch plantation was established in 1947. GMF retains the correspondence between Jesse Diller, the USDA plant pathologist, and George Kiefer, the GMF forest manager at the time, as well as copies of the reports that were filed, although there are no longer any trees at this site.
|  | Left, Jesse Diller, USDA plant pathologist, visiting with Grover Cleavland Chattleton, whose house is now the site of Yale Camp. | |
More recent efforts at GMF include a chestnut orchard created in 2007 by the Connecticut Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation on the site of an old GMF Christmas tree plantation off Under Mountain Road in Falls Village. Ellery “Woods” Sinclair, still a board member of the CT Chapter, was at that time an English teacher at Housatonic Valley Regional High School. He brought a dozen students at a time to plant over 300 third-generation back-crossed nuts, which are 94% American chestnut. These trees were then inoculated with two different strains of the chestnuts blight fungus to test their resistance, and observations on them continue today. | |
GMF Board member Star Childs standing, with Woods Sinclair, on a visit in November for an interview on the history of the American Chestnut Foundation plantation at GMF. | |
Happy Valentine's Day! Breeding Season for GMF's Bobcats
The bobcat, also known as the red lynx (Lynx rufus) is found throughout North America and in almost all of New England. Hares, cottontails and other small mammals comprise much of their preferred diet, although larger bobcats can bring down deer.
Bobcats have well-defined territories, but will travel long distances to mate, and the breeding season in New England starts in February. Bobcat courtship is described in Mary Holland’s Naturally Curious as a series of "chases, bumping behavior, and ambushes" and litters of typically two to four kittens are born in late April to mid-May.
Bobcats at GMF, photographed by staff and visitors and captured on trail cameras:
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GMF's 78th Sugaring Season Underway
Visitors are welcome at the sugar house, which is just beyond the Forestry Office at the East Gate. Check to see if staff are boiling or schedule a tour and learn about maple syrup by contacting Matt Gallagher at matt@greatmountainforest.org
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GMF staff collected over 1000 gallons of sap during the warm days the second week of February, an early start to making maple syrup. | |
Matt Gallagher stokes the evaporator | |
Russell Russ checks the automatic draw-off, purchased this year through a generous grant from the AKC Fund to make upgrades to the sugar house | |
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Forest Notices
Welcome to the forest!
GMF is a place of peaceful co-existence for everyone
- Keep your dog on a leash and if you pack it in--pack it out.
- Sign in at kiosks at the East and West Gates.
- Watch for inclement weather notices on social media and website.
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Stand with the Trees!
Donate to Great Mountain Forest.
Your generosity makes our work possible!
GMF is critical to the environmental and economic sustainability of the region as well as an important contributor to research and education about climate change and environmental health. Help us support the forest as a vital natural resource and a place for those who love the woods.
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