Most likely, yes. We’re now in the “prescribed burn” season—late winter and spring.  The Commission uses controlled, low-level flames to restore and maintain wildlife habitat on most of the 2 million acres of state game lands used by hunters, anglers and wildlife watchers.

In North Carolina, prescribed burning is commonly conducted between January and March, when most trees are less active metabolically. Repeated burns conducted during the spring growing season eventually kill hardwood sprouts, allowing a diversity of native grasses, herbs and wildflowers to develop. These herbaceous plants are typically more valuable than hardwood sprouts for food and cover for wildlife. Without prescribed burns, wildlife in some habitats may experience low reproduction and eventual displacement. READ MORE

 

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And where there’s fire, at least on a N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission game land, there’s usually a prescribed burn — one of the best and most cost-effective methods of managing habitat for wildlife. A prescribed burn, or an intentional burning of vegetation under strict and specific circumstances, helps restore and maintain wildlife habitat. It is a cost-effective tool that Commission staff uses to create and maintain suitable and ample wildlife habitat in old fields, native grasslands and open-canopy woodlands on game lands throughout the state. The most common prescribed burns Commission staff conducts are restoration burns and maintenance burns. Restoration burns, as their name implies, are done on fire-dependent habitats that haven’t been burned in years. These habitats include longleaf, shortleaf, pond, table mountain and pitch pine forests, hardwood glades and savannahs, prairies, and...

Joe Schmoe knows a guy who knows guy whose brother was a game warden who swears when he was on staff at the Wildlife Commission, biologists dropped dozens of rattlesnakes from helicopters. Many folks tell this story. Sometimes, the story is “legitimized” by adding details:  Wildlife dropped the snakes (with parachutes?) to control the deer population, and the rattler-stocking project was conducted under the cover of night from black, stealth helicopters to stay off the public’s radar screen. Still others weave a tale of biologists wanting to replenish a dwindling population of rattlesnakes in Hanging Rock State Park. Sounds exciting. Unfortunately — or fortunately, depending on how much you like snakes — it’s not true. This is one of a few rumors that circulate around North Carolina, despite the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s  persistent efforts to quash them. Some also believe the Commission released...