Originally Posted By: BrentD
Seems a lot of us were in FMNF after Hugo. I was there within a week. It was quite the mess. I am curious to learn the details of how it has been mismanaged.


First let me position myself - I'm a hunter and have killed just about every game species in the forest except for deer. The list includes wild turkey, woodcock, snipe, squirrel, fox squirrel (when they were legal), dove, bobwhite and wood ducks. It's one of the few places where I know I can reliably catch a redfin pickerel. I'm also an avid bird watcher and saw my first Red-cockaded woodpecker and Bachman's sparrows in the FMNF. I'm a long-distance hiker that has hiked the entire Palmetto Trail section that runs through the FMNF from Awendaw to Bonneau. And, I’m a native plant enthusiast and there’s about a half dozen really unique wildflowers that I have only ever found in the FMNF. I say all of this I’m a big supporter of multi-use management.

The biggest single management misstep, in my opinion, is infrequent or miss-timed control burns. Example: back in the heyday of the FMNF they never burned when wild turkey were on the nest…now it’s an all-too-common facebook rant is someone finding a burned up turkey nest. Areas that used to be havens for both flora and fauna are impenetrable thickets devoid of avian chirps or whistles. I don’t know if it goes back to funding or whether the “new” management techniques are not working but something is different and not in a good way…

FMNF Pine Lily:



FMNF Black-eye Suzie: