Registration is now open for the Hanover Trails Challenge, a do-at-your-own pace hiking challenge for all ages. HTC runs until FallFest, and completed booklets are entered into a raffle! Sign up today through Hanover Parks & Rec here.
Mink the Bear update
Due to the response from the public (including many from out-of-state) and discussions between Governor Sununu and local, state and federal bear experts, this bear family is slated to be relocated. The three cubs have now been released in the North Country, after being tagged to help identify them should they return. The mother bear, pictured here in 2016, has yet to be relocated. We’re grateful to NH Fish & Game and USDA Wildlife Services for sharing their experience with Upper Valley communities and for be
ing such responsive stewards of our wildlife and natural resources. The Hanover Conservancy looks forward to working with the Town of Hanover on an ordinance to help eliminate food attractants. We will continue our education efforts on how to be a safe neighbor of our many wonderful natural areas.
From Bear and Human Conflicts – A Need for Change:
If you find [this issue] provoking, please lend your support and assistance. Follow the Something’s Bruin guidelines. Talk to your friends and neighbors and encourage them to be proactive in preventing conflicts with bears. Get active within your community and work for change. Change may be hard but it is not impossible. It’s our own human behavior that creates these conflicts, and therefore it is our own behavior that needs to be modified. (read full article here) -Andrew Timmins, NH Fish & Game Bear Biologist
About those bears…
The Hanover Conservancy has worked hard for many, many years to educate the Hanover community about how to co-exist with native wildlife, including the bears that, for generations, have occupied a home range near downtown and Mink Brook. We’ve sponsored programs by a variety of bear experts, blanketed inboxes with repeated pleas to take in birdfeeders, stuffed flyers in doors, posted signs, and sought help from the town and state. We organized a meeting with these experts and, most recently, sought volunteers to help with “bear hazing” to try to deter the bears from approaching homes in a last-ditch effort to stave off the inevitable.
Despite these efforts and those of many concerned neighbors, a bounty of birdfeeders, unsecured trash, and other inappropriate food sources remained available, leading the mother bear to teach her cubs to seek these rather than wild foods. The result is cubs that are twice the size they should be for their age, with no fear of humans or concept of bear/human boundaries. Much as we’d like to imagine that a different future could await bears that think it’s okay to help themselves to brownies on a kitchen counter, there is, unfortunately, no “Bear-Anon” to rehabilitate a bear that has strayed from its wild roots. And it is not the bears’ fault.
The bears will ultimately pay the price for human mistakes that are forcing state biologists to trap and euthanize the mother and her cubs. Nobody wants that fate for them, but with such unnatural habits, the bears cannot be released elsewhere. They would either continue their dangerous ways in their new home or would find their way back to Hanover after being driven out by bears already living there. There is no other place a bear gone bad can go.
When one Hanover neighborhood decided to clean up its bear attractants and got serious about it, the bears stopped visiting, according to deputy fire chief Mike Hinsley, who has diligently scouted the situation. Bear-proof trash containers, taking in birdfeeders when bears emerge in spring, and confining access to compost are all sensible solutions. We strongly support a town-wide ordinance requiring responsible management of trash and other bear attractants.
In the meantime, we recognize that there is excellent bear habitat in our area – Indian Ridge, Velvet Rocks, and stream corridors – and that it’s only a matter of time before a new bear discovers the recently-vacated territory in Hanover. We hope this time the bear receives a different welcome, from a community that has united to help it remain wild and free.
Ferns of Moose Mountain
Join us on June 3rd from 1-3 for an introduction to Moose Mountain’s lush spring ferns. Botanists of all ages and levels welcome!
Kite Day on Balch Hill
Join us Saturday, May 20 from 2-4 for this annual family favorite, sponsored by Red Kite Candy!
Spring birding continues at the Hudson Farm on Saturday, May 20, at 7am. Read More…
Deer Hunting Update for 2017 Season
About the deer…
We’ve been watching both the deer and their snacking habits at Balch Hill for some time, and when the Town of Hanover approached us in the fall of 2013 about opening Balch Hill for a trial archery season to help thin an increasingly unhealthy herd, we gave the idea serious consideration. A survey of our Balch Hill neighbors in 2011 had indicated strong support for hunting to control the deer population. Many Balch Hill deer are noticeably smaller these days, likely due to competition.
After only one year, Dartmouth forest ecology studies showed deer browse is having an impact on the Natural Area. Other studies have found that over-browsing by deer favors invasive plants, reduces cover for other wildlife, and reduces nesting bird habitat and abundance.
In 2017, Balch Hill will be again be open for specially permitted deer hunting during the full archery season, which runs from Sept. 15th through Dec. 15th. In previous years, the hill has been closed for the first four days of the season to all users except permitted hunters; due to hunter and neighbor feedback, the preserve will not be closed at any point in 2017. We work diligently with neighbors, the Town of Hanover, and Dartmouth College to ensure the guidelines are clearly posted, and send out a Balch Hill e-newsletter with the current year’s hunting information. Signs will be posted on the kiosks and at trailheads as a reminder to use caution, and blaze orange safety vests will be available at the Grasse Road kiosk for hikers to borrow while on Balch Hill. A survey sent to neighboring residents in 2015 showed strong support for continued hunting on Balch Hill.
During hunting season, please wear blaze orange, make sure your children are similarly attired, and put bright vests or collars on your pets! Be aware that the nearby Oak Hill, Trescott Company lands, and Velvet Rocks areas are also open to hunting. We apologize for any inconvenience, but want to offer a better chance to the select hunters who are helping us responsibly manage Balch Hill. We view hunting as a useful way to manage the Natural Area in the absence of natural predators. Overall, hunting in Hanover has been increasingly successful, as recorded by New Hampshire Fish & Game. For more information on our 2015 neighbor survey results, or questions about our hunting management, please contact Program Coordinator Courtney Dragiff at cdragiff@hanoverconservancy.org.
For 2015 and 2016, Balch Hill was open to specially permitted hunters for the full archery season, Sept. 15 – Dec. 15. A limited number of hunters were allowed at any one time, again required to hunt only from tree stands by bow only (no firearms allowed). Tree stands must be at least 50 feet from trails and a hunter cannot shoot within 300 feet of a permanently occupied home without the landowner’s permission. To facilitate a more concentrated and successful hunt at the start of the season, we closed Balch Hill to all other recreational users for the first four days of the archery season. The Balch Hill Stewardship Committee put up hard-to-miss signs for trail users, and we had a successful season- a total of 8 deer were taken on the Preserve.
For 2014, we listened to the larger community at a well-attended forum and again at an open meeting of the Balch Hill Stewardship Committee in September. We opened Balch Hill at the very end of the season to bow hunting from tree stands by permit only. It turned out that most hunters had already taken their deer before we allowed hunting to begin, so results were disappointing. Only three deer were taken, despite many hours of effort. In March, 2015, we presented testimony to the NH Fish and Game Department for its draft game management plan, prompting Fish and Game to send a delegation of its top officials to meet with us in June.
In 2013, the Natural Area was opened to a limited number of archers carrying a special Town permit for the last half of deer season. No firearms were allowed. The trails and summit remained open and signs at each trailhead alerted trail users.
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