Courtesy Photo | A white-tailed buck stands in a newly restored timber stand improvement area in...... read more read more
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FORT SILL, Oklahoma — The buck stood broadside in the winter light, framed by oaks and scattered mulch. For a lot of hunters, it would have been the shot of a lifetime.
Jeremiah Zurenda took his shot with a camera.
For the Natural Resources Branch chief the photo was more than a cool picture. It was proof that a big gamble on Fort Sill’s woods, a bold effort to “reset” aging forests, is already paying off.
“That deer was standing right in the middle of a habitat restoration project we had just finished,” Zurenda said. “You see wildlife using a place you just reset, and you know you’re on the right track.”
The project began in Training Area 42, just south of Ten Mile Crossing, in a part of post that had grown so thick with timber that sunlight barely reached the ground.
“The forest floor there was basically a monoculture of leaf litter and duff,” Zurenda said. “It looked like a classic closed-canopy, over-mature stand. Great for shade, not so great for anything that needs grass, wildflowers or low-growing cover.”
On about 40 acres, with roughly 300 acres scheduled to follow, Fort Sill’s Natural Resources team is carrying out what foresters call timber stand improvement. In plain language, it means thinning the understory of older, overgrown forest to let light back in.
To do that, the crew uses a forestry mulcher, a tracked machine with a spinning drum lined with metal teeth. The operator drives the mulcher through selected areas of brush and small trees, grinding them in place into a layer of mulch on the forest floor. The larger hardwood trees remain, but the dense “wall” of understory that once blocked light and movement is gone.
“Overnight, the woods go from dense and dark to open and airy,” Zurenda said. “Timber stand improvement is a hard reset. But that reset is what allows the ecosystem to breathe again.”
Right now, the treated areas might look rough to someone driving by; shredded stems, exposed trunks, chips of wood covering the ground. To a biologist, it’s the first chapter of a much longer story.
“Over the next three to four years, that area will respond with wildflowers — what we call forbs — and native grasses that are sitting in the seed bank just waiting for sunlight,” he said. “Instead of a single habitat type, you get a cascade of different habitats.”
A “cascade of habitats” sounds technical, but the results are easy to picture.
“When we open the canopy, we don’t just change one thing,” Zurenda said. “We change everything from the tree limbs all the way down to the soil.”
More light on the ground means a flush of grasses and wildflowers that feed rabbits, songbirds, quail and pollinators like bees and butterflies. Shrubs and young trees sprout, creating nesting and hiding cover for birds and small mammals. New leaves and shoots provide high-quality browse for deer and elk.
“As the structure changes, different species move in,” he said. “You start seeing more birds, more small mammals, more insects, and the predators that follow them. That’s the cascade, layer after layer of new opportunity for wildlife.”
The first driver of the project was not hunting or even scenery. It was the Endangered Species Act, the federal law that requires agencies, including the Department of Defense, to protect threatened and endangered plants and animals and the habitats they depend on while still carrying out their missions.
“This started as a way to make sure we maintain quality habitat for species covered by the Endangered Species Act,” Zurenda said. “That includes the proposed tri-colored bat, which needs open-canopy forests to move, hunt insects and roost effectively.”
By reducing the density of the understory and opening up the tree canopy, the project makes it easier for bats to navigate through the woods and find food.
“Bats are incredibly important,” he said. “A single bat can eat thousands of insects in a night. That means fewer mosquitoes, fewer crop pests and a healthier balance overall. Around the world, bats also pollinate plants and help spread seeds. When we take care of them, we’re taking care of a big piece of the ecosystem that most people never see.”
The treatment area in Training Area 42 includes one of Fort Sill’s largest winter roosts for wild turkeys.
“Turkeys are especially vulnerable at night when they’re on the roost,” Zurenda said. “By opening the canopy and forest floor, we’ve made that roost safer. They can see predators coming, and they have better options for foraging nearby when they come down in the morning.”
Big game animals are responding, too.
“Deer, elk and other browsers love new growth,” he said. “When we mulch woody vegetation, those plants respond in the growing season with fresh shoots that are packed with nutrients. It’s like we’ve created a buffet line.”
The difference is already obvious.
“Right now that area is just noticeably game rich,” Zurenda said. “If you drive North Boundary Road, which runs right alongside the treatment area in Training Area 42, you can see deer, elk and turkeys using it. You don’t have to take my word for it, just go have a look.”
Before Fort Sill was a training installation, this part of Oklahoma was more grassland and savanna than closed-canopy forest. A savanna ecosystem is built on a mixro, ughly 40 to 60 percent tree canopy, with the remaining cover made up of grasses and shrubs.
“Historically, this landscape was not a solid wall of trees,” Zurenda said. “Fire, grazing and time created more of a patchwork. A lot of our work now is about nudging it back in that direction.”
Timber stand improvement is one tool in that toolbox. Others include prescribed fire, targeted grazing and, when needed, limited chemical treatment of invasive species. Together they create the conditions where native plants, not brush-choked thickets, dominate the understory.
“The cool part is we are not planting a food plot or rolling out sod,” he said. “We are simply giving the native seed bank a chance to wake up. This is a Fort Sill landscape rebuilding itself.”
For commanders and Soldiers, the project has another payoff, more usable training land and less wildfire risk.
The Sikes Act, another federal law, provides guidance to military installations on managing natural resources. It requires posts like Fort Sill to support native species while also sustaining an active training environment. Thick, impenetrable woods do neither particularly well.
“The area we started with was so dense units really could not use it effectively,” Zurenda said. “You could not run an honest training scenario in there. Now, as it opens up, it becomes accessible again. You can move Soldiers through it, see targets and execute realistic missions.”
The Ten Mile area has also been one of the highest-risk locations for wildfires escaping the installation boundary. Heavy, continuous fuels and dense canopy made it difficult for firefighters to get ahead of a blaze or use prescribed fire safely.
“This was a calculated effort with the Directorate of Emergency Services Fire Department and the Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security,” he said. “By reducing canopy and forest cover, we are massively cutting fuel loads. As long as we keep managing vegetation in that treatment area, the risk of a wildfire leaving post stays low.”
A wildland fire working group that includes the Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security; the Directorate of Emergency Services Fire Department; the Integrated Training Area Management program; the Directorate of Public Works surface maintenance team; and the Environmental Quality Division helped prioritize where to start.
“We asked, ‘Where can we do the most good for training, wildlife and fire risk all at once?’ Ten Mile and Training Area 42 rose straight to the top,” Zurenda said.
Fort Sill is not doing this alone.
The work is being carried out through an intergovernmental support agreement with the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, a partnership that allows the installation to bring in additional expertise and manpower for vegetation management.
“We only have so many people in our Natural Resources Branch,” Zurenda said. “This intergovernmental support agreement has been huge. It is turning into a case study in how those agreements can benefit everybody involved.”
The project also gave the team a chance to train two new biological technicians through the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute partnership.
“They are the next generation of biologists and conservation leaders,” he said. “I am proud they get to see a project like this from start to finish and watch immediate results on the ground. A lot of conservation work takes years before you see a difference. Here, the change is obvious from day one.”
For Fort Sill’s hunting community, the message is simple, this is exactly the kind of place you want to keep an eye on.
“Areas that are regenerating almost always provide quality hunting opportunities,” Zurenda said. “There is new growth, fresh browse and a ton of edge habitat. That is the recipe for seeing game.”
Hunters who are registered with the Fort Sill iSportsman platform can already access Training Area 42 when it is open for hunting, subject to normal rules and schedules.
“Hunters are one of our most important tools for managing big game populations on post,” he said. “Hunting is also one of the most popular activities on the installation. It gives Soldiers, retirees, veterans rated at 100 percent disability, National Guard and Reserve members, and Department of the Army civilian employees a way to decompress while connecting with the land they help defend.”
For those interested in getting started with hunting or fishing on Fort Sill, regulations, maps and registration information are available on the Fort Sill iSportsman website at https://sill.isportsman.net/.
With opportunity comes responsibility. Zurenda asks hunters and other outdoor users to stay on designated roads, respect posted closures, report wildfires quickly and avoid tearing up newly restored areas with unauthorized vehicle use.
“If we all treat these places like the resource they are, they will just keep getting better,” he said.
Getting to this point took almost a year of planning, coordination and convincing. A first-of-its-kind project on an active training installation is not an easy sell.
“There were people who were skeptical,” Zurenda admitted. “But now that the work is on the ground, all the feedback we have gotten from partners has been positive.”
For a biologist and outdoorsman who has seen similar projects succeed elsewhere, watching Fort Sill’s woods respond never gets old.
“When I stand there and see a buck feeding in a stand we just reset, or turkeys drifting through a roost we just made safer, it really does fall under ‘things that make me smile,’” he said. “This project will keep improving for the next 10 years, but you can already see the story it is telling, about habitat, about training, about fire, about the future of this installation.”
His advice to anyone curious, whether they wear a uniform, carry a bow or just like a Sunday drive, go see it for yourself.
“I recommend taking a drive out to Ten Mile and North Boundary Road,” Zurenda said. “Look at where we started, look at where it is now, and imagine what it will be in a few short years. That is Fort Sill taking care of its land, its mission and its people, all at the same time.”
| Date Taken: | 12.04.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 12.05.2025 09:38 |
| Story ID: | 553110 |
| Location: | FORT SILL, OKLAHOMA, US |
| Web Views: | 24 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Fort Sill Habitat Restoration Cuts Wildfire Risk, Grows New Opportunities for Hunters, by Chris Gardner, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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