Research Report #41 — Natural Values of The Mohonk Trust Lands
For many years scientists and naturalists have been studying and observing the flora and fauna of the Shawangunk Ridge. Foremost among them was Daniel Smiley, for whom Mohonk Preserve’s Daniel Smiley Research Center is named. Dan wrote numerous reports summarizing his observations on various topics. This regularly occurring series will feature some of these reports; some hold tremendous scientific value today and just await an interested researcher to follow up, others showcase a quirky sense of humor or highlight an oddity of nature.
Read the Report: Natural Values of The Mohonk Trust Lands. April, 1973. Daniel Smiley and Bradley Snyder.
A Note from Paul C. Huth, Director of Research Emeritus: This paper, written over 45 years ago, captures a vision of “wholistic” land management that was part of the philosophy of The Mohonk Trust’s (TMT) founders and administrators, and previous generations of the Smiley Family at Mohonk, dating back to 1869. It was prepared to be submitted with an application for National Natural Landmark consideration in April, 1973, and as part of the Mohonk Trust’s first-decade celebration of special events. The Shawangunk “Ellenville Fault-Ice Caves” were already at this time designated a part of National Natural Landmark program. This report was also a precursor to the more comprehensive, 48 page, illustrated book, “The Shawangunks Mountains-A History of Nature and Man,” by Bradley Snyder and Karl Beard, and published by the Mohonk Preserve in 1981.
The authors divided the natural values of Mohonk Trust lands into eight interpretive sections-Geology, Physiographic Province, Climax Communities, Restoration Of Natural Condition, Rare or Restricted Species, Seasonal and Migratory Animals, Illustration of Scientific Discoveries, and Scenic Grandeur.
In the “Geology” section, the two exposed sedimentary rock types that form the ridge, the basement Ordovician shale, and the “massive” cap rock of Silurian “quartzitic” conglomerate are presented as the principle visible and structural features that make up the Northern Shawangunk Mountains. The cap of white conglomerate, made up of varying sized crystals of pure quartz embedded in a matrix of silica, reaches over 300 feet in thickness. The miles of exposed high angle cliffs and five summit sky lakes are artifacts of more recent glacial geology. Also mentioned as a “distinctive feature” is the “boulder talus” below the conglomerate escarpments.
These distinctive geological features attracted 19th century Hudson River School artists, like Thomas Cole, Daniel Huntington, and Sanford Gifford, among others, prominent writers and researchers of the day, and settlers, like Albert K. Smiley is 1869, the founder of Mohonk. In the viewshed from the ridge to the east and south is the northward flowing Wallkill River and it’s floodplain, and to the north is the Rondout Creek and it’s floodplain and “V-shaped” stream feeder valleys from the adjacent “eroded peneplain” of the Devonian Catskill Mountains.
Dan and Brad explained one of the more interesting features of the ridge to the naturalist under the section “Physiographic Province(s).” That of the latitudinal location of The Mohonk Trust lands in relation to the eastern “Piedmont” to the south, the “Appalachian plateaus” to the west and south, and the “New England-Adirondack region” to the north and northeast. Today, we divide and call these provinces ecoregions. Still, as a result of the overlap of northern and southern species associations, diversity of plants and animals found in the Shawangunks ranges widely. Higher exposed elevations and “ice caves” harbor northern plant species such as the Highland or Arctic Rush, Three-toothed Cinquefoil, and the glacial relect, Broom Crowberry. Over 200 species of birds spend time in the Shawangunks. These include three seasonally distinct populations of the Dark-eyed Junco, and seasonally, birds like the Snow Bunting. Lower elevation and south facing slopes with exposed rock are home to the Five-lined Skink, forests dominated by Chestnut Oak, and in protected coves, exceptional-sized Tulip Trees, Pignut Hickory, and White Oaks. Formerly well known on Shawangunk cliff and talus was the now extirpated native Allegheny Woodrat.
We don’t think of “climax communities” much in the Shawangunks, with the last 300 years of heavy human impact from initial settlement, including impactful tan bark harvest, hoop pole cutting, charcoal burning, millstone harvest, and clearing for agriculture. But, as this report implies, looking carefully at the finer horizons of the Mohonk land resource, reveals that not all had been cut or disturbed. It should be noted that these “steady state” or “climax communities,” as we now look at them in the Shawangunks, include untouched wooded swamps, cliff faces, trees growing in inaccessible talus boulder fields, and the capping vegetation communities found on top of large, house-sized individual conglomerate talus boulders, which essentially “has not been disturbed since the retreat of the continental icecap.” A major Mohonk Preserve Research Associate Project undertaken in the early 1970s by Dr. Edward R. Cook, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, looked at tree rings, tree age, and climate. Ed used an increment borer to drill and core thousands of trees growing in cliff and related boulder talus communities across the ridge. Like those, for example, found along Giant’s Path, above Rhododendron Swamp, where he discovered individual trees of Pitch Pine, Hemlock, and White Pine between 300 and 400 years old. One White Pine, still alive today, dates back to 1626!
Looking at the Shawangunk ridge today, we can say that there are more trees here now than in the last 300 years. After such a long well-documented history of the land and human use since first settlement, and that of forest product harvest on both slopes of the ridge, the last 80 or so years has been dominated by a major return to wildness. As agricultural fields were abandoned in the 1930s to the 1950s, woody invasion was given free reign, resulting in young, and now mature, second growth forest. To maintain natural and historical viewshed diversity, remaining Mohonk Preserve fields today have prescriptions for vegetation management, including mowing, grazing, and fire. “At Mohonk, preservation is tempered with ecosystem understanding as it is gained.” “Cutting, spraying, and the introduction of exotic species, both flora and fauna, have not been permitted; this extends to not allowing the release of foreign predators and parasites of the Gypsy Moth. This policy of non-interference is simply not ‘natural,’ but rather another step in the long history of land management, just as the existence of The Trust itself reflects changing concepts of man’s relationship to nature.”
The shortlist of five local “Rare and Restricted (Plant) Species” that Dan considered “rare or (of) restricted habitat….found at ‘Mohonk,” has of course evolved and expanded over the past nearly 50 years, from further detailed field work, both in the Shawangunks, and state-wide. In 1985, the New York Natural Heritage Program was established, with a mission “ to facilitate conservation of rare animals, rare plants, and natural ecosystems….(and) maintains New York’s most comprehensive database on the status and location of rare species and natural communities.” Looking at the Shawangunk Ridge as a whole, there are some 200 records of rare plant and animal species and natural communities documented. The “New York Natural Heritage Program ranked the Shawangunks highest in biological diversity,” and it is considered “one of the most important sites for conservation in northeastern United States.” In 1991, the Nature Conservancy designated the Shawangunk ridge as one of the Earth’s “Last Great Places.”
In the section “Seasonal and Migratory Animals,” Dan and Brad listed “49 species of mammals, 37 herptiles, and 170 birds.” Today, our publicly available species checklists, prepared with an additional 45 years of observational records, list “47 mammal species (excluding extirpated, recorded nearby and an unconfirmed record),” “43 species of herptiles,” and “over 200 species (of birds) that live or spend time in the Shawangunks.” The Mohonk Preserve continues to allow Deer hunting as part of our Deer Management Program, to “mitigate the impacts of Deer overbrowsing on the unique forests (and species) of the Shawangunk Mountains.” For detailed information see the Preserve website, under “Deer Management.” The Preserve also sponsors an annual fall Hawk Watch at the Near Trapps, that Dan and Brad mentioned in their report and which Dan started in the early 1950s, which today is operated by Mohonk Preserve Citizen Science Volunteers. “The data is submitted to the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA).”
I think one of the most important statements in their report is in the piece “Illustration of Scientific Discoveries,” where they say, “finally, the greatest potential value of The Trust’s baseline studies also lies in the future, when repetitions of the studies will surely disclose significant changes in the Shawangunk ecosystem.” How true, both in regards to climate and species changes!
In the last section, “Scenic Grandeur,” Dan and Brad acknowledge the special “century long” “scenic appeal” that the Shawangunk Mountains has had for visitors, and that they felt correctly “is growing stronger.” From some 25,000 visitors to Mohonk Trust land in 1972, today that number has grown about 8 times to some 200,000! And, to the ridge as a whole, about 20 times, to some 500,000 today! Their concern for maintaining the quality of the ecosystem, and allowing for a quality recreational experience for a rapidly increasing audience was captured in the last couple of paragraphs of the report — “A 22,000 acre portion of the Shawangunk Mountain Range is comprised of lands owned by the State of New York, the Town of Ellenville, Minnewaska Mountain Houses, Inc., and the Mohonk Trust and Lake Mohonk Resort. The Master Plan Team (then) decided, following its research, that the whole Shawangunk Range is more important as a resource than any of its individual parts.”
Serendipitously, twenty-one years later, in 1994, 10 public and private landowners and land managers met and formed the Shawangunk Ridge Biodiversity Partnership, to work cooperatively to use science to guide ridge-wide management as one ecosystem unit, just as had been envisioned by the Master Plan Team.
Read the Report: Natural Values of The Mohonk Trust Lands. April, 1973. Daniel Smiley and Bradley Snyder.
