Campers, cyclists, hikers, birding enthusiasts and other outdoor recreationalists would be required to buy an annual pass to access game lands in the state under a proposal floated by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

The “conservation access pass” proposal targets those users because they are increasingly visiting game lands and utilizing state Wildlife Resources boating-access areas, commission officials say.

“The more people you put out there, the more activities they’re doing,” said Wildlife Resources Commission Land and Water Access Division Chief Daron Barnes. “You see a general degradation of those habitats’ infrastructure and it can impede management activities. So, there is a need for additional funding to address these types of impacts on land.”

Barnes explained to an online audience during a public meeting Tuesday night that hunters, anglers and trappers would not have to buy a pass because they are already “paying in” to access and use game lands, while outdoor recreationalists are increasingly using game lands free of charge.

“We see that number of people increasing year after year,” he said.

The prospective pass program was met with mixed feedback during the meeting, where participants raised concerns about a pass fee potentially affecting outdoor programs, particularly in low-income communities, and safety issues during hunting seasons.

If implemented, conservation access passes would apply at a minimum to commission-owned game lands, which include roughly a quarter, or more than 542,000 acres, of the 2.1 million acres of game lands the agency manages.

In an email responding to questions following the meeting, Carrie Ruhlman, policy manager with the commission’s Office of Conservation Policy & Analysis, said the passes “may also apply on game lands owned by partner agencies/entities.”

“Once a decision is made on whether to move forward with a Pass, the WRC will reach out to those partners to see if they would like the Pass to apply to their property,” she said.

Roughly half, or 1.26 million acres, of game lands Wildlife Resources manages are owned by the U.S. Forest Service. A mix of other state agencies, local governments, private businesses and residents owns a little more than 299,200 acres.

Wildlife Resources owns 70 game lands, 37 of which span a total of more than 320,000 acres across the state’s coastal region.

Under the proposal, conservation access passes would be required for use at all of the more than 250 boating access areas that are built and maintained by the state for vessels that do not currently have to be registered with the agency. Those include nonmotorized water vessels like kayaks, canoes and stand-up paddleboards.

Passes would also be required to use five Wildlife Resources shooting ranges.

Franklin County resident William Teague said he doesn’t have a problem with nonhunters, anglers and trappers using the agency’s shooting ranges or with paddlers utilizing boat access areas.

But the state’s growing population and the demands of development that come with it are crowding out lands on which hunters and trappers can go, he said Tuesday.

Private land “is becoming harder and harder to be able to hunt,” Teague said. “And so it’s kind of forcing some of us to hunt exclusively on public land. There’s fewer and fewer opportunities to hunt and trap, for that matter. There’s plenty of other places across the state that if you’re not a hunter, trapper or angler that you can go and do recreational-type things.”

He was joined by others who spoke during the meeting in raising concerns about recreationalists using game lands during hunting seasons.

Jerry Price suggested certain areas within game lands be restricted for hunting and trapping use only during hunting seasons. Those areas could be rotated between that group of users and recreational uses, he said.

“To hunters, there’s very few places that have good quantities of game, mainly big game deer hunting,” Price said.

Haw River Keeper Emily Sutton said she understands the agency’s need to draw additional revenue to maintain game lands resources.

“But I think charging a fee for the general public to access these public lands, especially in a watershed like mine where there’s increasingly less big tracts of open space for people to explore, like the Jordan Lake Game Lands, is not the way to go about this,” she said. “It will discourage people from coming into those game lands and exploring these big tracts of forests that we don’t have a lot of access to in this part of the state anymore.”

Sutton said tacking fees to nonmotorized water vessels could be a huge hit for outfitters, schools and universities, and organizations like hers that offer free paddle events and clinics.

Anna Wheeler with the Dan River Basin Association agreed.

“We do free paddles for Saturday outings once a month,” she said. “This could really be a situation that gets a little bit expensive and discourages people from getting outdoors.”

The prospective pass fee would impact outdoor programs offered at colleges and universities through the state, according to Nathan Rector, director of Duke University’s Outdoor Adventures.

“My program certainly uses some of these boat ramps and we take multiple groups there and if we had to transfer that cost to our participants, a lot of our participants would just not be able to afford it, and we would really not exist,” he said. “We don’t make money off these things. We’re just offering a resource and so I’m hoping that either this would be reconsidered or some sort of educational nonprofit alternative would be offered to universities across the state.”

The agency is considering a $30 pass fee, but commission officials say they have not settled on a price to present to the voting members, who will consider whether to implement the conservation access pass program.

Anyone 16 and older would be required to obtain the pass, which would be good for one year from the date of purchase.

Wildlife Resources is accepting online feedback on the pass proposal through March 28.  All comments are to be complied and presented to the commission.

Additional information about the conservation access pass proposal is available at ncwildlife.org/conservation-access-pass.

If the plan is approved, passes would be effective no earlier than 2026.

A forest fire that started earlier this week in the Holly Shelter Game Land has grown significantly and was only 25% contained Thursday.

The blaze, which officials now call the Juniper Road Two Fire, was estimated at 2,000 acres after pushing beyond fire lines Wednesday. The flames were moving east toward N.C. 50, about 2 miles away.

Officials said the Juniper Road Two Fire was caused by a lightning strike Tuesday deep in the interior of the game lands. The fire had expanded from 150 acres early Wednesday to more than 1,500 acres by that evening.

Related: Firefighters battle 150-acre Holly Shelter Game Land blaze

Fire personnel were working to reorganize containment lines and catch wind-driven spot fires  but difficult terrain, changing weather patterns with wind gusts, low relative humidity and high heat index values made firefighting efforts more difficult.

Officials said no structures were threatened but they urged the public to remain vigilant and continue monitoring local news. Hazardous road conditions due to smoke may be a factor during the evening and overnight hours.

Efforts to fight the fire include a dozen tractor plow units with crewmen, one helicopter, two single-engine air tankers, one scout and lead plane and 21 personnel from the N.C. Forest Service.

Officials reminded the public to keep drones away from wildfires. While drones provide unique opportunities for aerial video and imagery of wildfire activity, they are unauthorized. Flying a drone near or around a wildfire compromises the safety of pilots and interferes with firefighting efforts.

Update Aug. 11: The fire grew from 150 acres to more than 1,500 acres by dark Wednesday evening and was 14% contained, according to an 11:49 p.m. Wednesday social media post from Pender County Emergency Management.

“Crews will continue working hard on the ground and from the air all day tomorrow (Thursday) to build containment lines and get closer to bringing this large fire under control. No threat to any homes at this time,” the post states.

On site were 12 North Carolina Forest Service tractor-plow units, a handful of crewmen, a mechanic, five district forest rangers, the Forest Service public information officer, one helicopter, two scout planes, lead plane, two single engine air tankers, state wildlife personnel, Pender EMS & Fire EMS unit, Pender County’s EMS, Fire EMS and other emergency services personnel as well as Onslow County emergency services personnel.

Both Pender and Onslow agencies are working closely with the state Forest Service “with suppression and planning ahead for anything that could be needed on this fire,” the post states.

Original post Aug. 10:

Pender County Emergency Management and the North Carolina Forest Service responded Wednesday to a 150-acre wildfire in Holly Shelter Game Land.

The state-owned game land covers 64,743 acres in Pender County.

Tammy Proctor, public information officer for the county, told Coastal Review Wednesday that the fire was under investigation.

Officials said smoke from the fire may affect Maple Hill, Holly Ridge and other areas near Pender and Onslow counties.

This isn’t the first fire in the Holly Shelter Game Land this month.

On Aug. 2, Pender County Emergency Management staff and the state Forest Service contained a 10-acre fire, possibly caused by lightening, in the game land. Three rangers, six tractor units, a scout plane and a helicopter responded, according to Emergency Management’s Facebook page.

Last of two parts

HAMPSTEAD — Vic French steps across a meadow of wire grass and gall berry at the Holly Shelter Game Lands Preserve to draw a distinction between the tidy, longleaf woodland and the adjacent jumble of a Carolina bay community.

Pond pines and loblolly bays jut above the dense, impenetrable understory of red and sweet bay, wax myrtle and unending twists of greenbrier.

Unlike the sandy longleaf pine woodland floor, soils here are deep and rich in organic matter – the by-product of undisturbed cycles of decomposing plant material – as much as six feet deep.  The densely intertwined vegetation provides perfect cover for all manner of wildlife, including black bear, wild turkey, nesting birds and reptiles, such as frogs and turtles.

Unfortunately, this preferred habitat proved fatal for wildlife caught in the lightning-sparked wildfire during the summer of 2011. The fire, which began in June, smoldered relentlessly in mostly inaccessible areas where drought had turned deep organic soils to tinder. By the time Hurricane Irene extinguished the embers in August, more than 30,000 acres were reduced to ash.

“Pond pines are not fire resistant. They fell over and burned, along with the dry understory. The fire was so intense, the soils burned away. The ground level dropped significantly and the seed banks and roots were destroyed,” says French, a biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. “It all will be under water when the heavy rains come.”

Recovery From Fire

The fire last year burned deep into the peat soil. Photo: Pam Smith

Recovery in the vast devastated area seems doubtful any time soon.

The drought that caused a drop in the water table also dried up creeks and streams that might have helped lessen the path of destruction. Fire-fighting became a matter of containment efforts, French explains. To box the fire in, wide corridors were cleared of vegetation along existing roads and power grids, exposing bare soil and removing burnable material, in order to break the fire’s spread.

Another fire that started last weekend outside the preserve threatened to cross over into the game lands.

Oddly, protected plants such as the Venus fly trap and sun dew are showing up in random spots and pitcher plants are making a comeback along disturbed areas at the fringes of the fire zone.

The rare carnivorous plants commonly grow in Holly Shelter savannas – the transition zones between dry longleaf woodlands and wet pocosin habitat.

Don’t ask French to name his favorite part of Holly Shelter.  It’s a bit like asking a father to choose his favorite child.  “It changes with every season,” he says.

Case in point: As French pulls his pick-up truck alongside the Ashes Creek impoundment, the crunch of tires on the gravel road results in a flurry of activity nearby. Nearly 500 green-winged teal ducks frantically rise from the water, circle the marsh, and settle onto a more secluded spot to renew grazing the smorgasbord of grasses and insects in the shallow fresh water.

“They showed up a couple of weeks ago,” French notes with an edge of excitement in his voice.  “I’ll show you another recent arrival.”

He drives a couple hundred yards and points across an open field to the edge of a burned out Carolina bay community. A newly built eagle’s nest sits at the top of a singed, skeleton of a tree.

“It’s a mystery why the eagle chose that nearly dead tree,” French muses.

Nor can he account for the pair of wild turkeys that scurry along one of the plowed over fire break lines – not their usual preferred habitat.

A Good Place for Frogs

This pond is perfect breeding habitat for the rare Carolina gopher frog. Photo: Pam Smith

Still, he knows for certain why rare Carolina gopher frogs choose to do their spring courting in bog ponds – some natural and some provided by wildlife personnel.

“We help Mother Nature out a bit by providing a clear pond with no fish to eat eggs or tadpoles during breeding season,” French says.

The good news is that most of the Holly Shelter Game Land was unscathed by last year’s fire. It continues to be a popular destination to observe the array of native plants, butterflies and beneficial insects that inhabit its diverse ecosystems.

Holly Shelter also is a birder’s delight: Along with the celebrated red-cockaded woodpecker, it is the year-round home to the Bachman’s sparrow; and, the preferred breeding habitat for the Acadian flycatcher, as well as Prothonotary, Swainson’s, hooded and yellow- throated warblers.

Many backyard gardeners are considering native plants in their landscapes because they are suited for the local climate and soils; are aesthetically pleasing; control invasive species; and provide habitat for a host of birds. If you’re one of them consider attending he N.C. Coastal Federation’s Native Plant Festival, April 27-28, at the group’s main office in Ocean in Carteret County.

Typical native plants that thrive in coastal counties include sweet bay magnolia, loblolly bay, bay laurel, sweet bay, gall berry, titi, fetterbush, zenobia and a variety of ornamental grasses.

• Watch a video on pond life in the game lands

From left: sun dew, Venus fly trap and Confederate jasmine. Photos: Pam Smith

What You Should Know

Providing public hunting opportunities has been a major focus of the N.C. Wildlife Commission for decades.

Holly Shelter Game Lands’ origins can be traced to 1939 with the reallocation of 38,000 acres of untamed land from the N.C. Board of Education to the N.C. Conservation and Development Division – the forerunner of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.

Since its creation as the Holly Shelter Wildlife Refuge, as it was known, the site has been expanded as a result of continued acquisitions and cooperative agreements with other state, federal, corporate and private landowners. The Federal Pittman-Roberson Act of 1937 enables ten percent tax on ammunition and firearms sales to go toward acquisition and preservation of wildlife restoration sites for hunting and fishing.

Much of the site is remote and inaccessible. A series of roads are open to the public for seasonal hunting in designated areas. Licensed hunters may arrange to stay at a primitive campsite for their quest of deer, squirrel, quail, wild turkey and black bear. And, handicapped sportsmen may use four-wheel recreational vehicles at two accessible game lands’ sites.

Two access points into Holly Shelter offer hikers and birders a chance to enjoy some of the game land’s diverse habitats.

Take N.C. 210 east from I-40 and cross the Northeast Cape Fear River. Drive less than a mile past the river and turn left on Shaw Highway (SR 1520). Go 7.3 miles to the Wildlife Commission boat access area by the river. Follow the trail along the dike between the river and the swamp forest.

From the intersection on N.C. 210 and U.S. 17 in Hampstead, drive north on U.S. 17 4.4 miles. Look for a N.C. Wildlife Commission sign on the left at the entrance to Lodge Road. The road is gated and closed from March 1 through Aug. 31, but you can walk into the game land here and walk through the flatwoods.

For additional information about Holly Shelter Game Lands, go here.

First of two parts

HAMPSTEAD — Vic French knows Holly Shelter Game Lands Preserve like the back of his hand.

The rest of us better have a detailed map, a GPS device and a good compass to take a walk on the wild side in this 65,000-acre biological cornucopia in Pender County.

French, a biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, has been associated with the preserve in various capacities for most of his 30-plus years with the commission.

He’ll tell you upfront that while the commission, governmental agencies and environmental groups play a role in protecting its natural wildness, Mother Nature is very much in charge of its distinct design.

Red-cockaded woodpecker dig nesting cavities in live pine tree. The sap helps protect the nest from predators. Photo: Pam Smith

Holly Shelter encompasses an expanse of longleaf pine woodlands, savannas, Carolina bays, pocosins and black water streams. Each unique habitat hosts equally unique plant and wildlife, including several threatened or endangered species found exclusively in the state’s southeastern coastal plain.

Much of the site is remote and inaccessible, but a series of roads are open to the public for hiking, birding, biking and seasonal hunting in designated areas.

The main road into Holly Shelter Game Lands, off U.S. 17 just north of Hampstead, serves as an introduction to the preserve’s varied ecosystem scenarios. An initial tangle of vegetation atop a sandy ridge gives way to a flat, open stretch of golden wire grass dancing in the wind beneath a stand of longleaf pine trees.

Many of the stately longleaf are marked with a pair of painted stripes, indicating active red-cockaded woodpecker cavities – “government housing,” as French jokingly calls them.

About 10 percent of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker population in southeastern North Carolina nest among the site’s longleaf pines. That’s no accident, French explains. Wildlife biologists follow a prescribed protocol to protect the iconic endangered species that relies on open stands of mature longleaf pines for nesting. At Holly Shelter, specialists conduct periodic controlled burns to maintain suitable habitat.

The controlled burns also promote the regeneration of beneficial plant species that attract other wildlife, including squirrel, quail, snakes and myriad reptiles. Along with native wiregrass, the longleaf pine understory may feature spikes of yucca, bluestem sedge, reed grass, Joe-pye weed and toothache grass. Confederate jasmine, roughleaf loosestrife, goldeneaster or roundheaded lespedeza may add dots and dashes of color.

Gall berry, an evergreen shrub, seems to thrive in a range of Holly Shelter ecosystems. Its tiny sweet-smelling flowers attract honey bees galore. Gall berry honey, French attests, is prized nectar.

Tuesday: A year after The Fire

Species Profile: Red-Cockaded Woodpecker

North Carolina Status: Endangered

U.S. Status: Endangered, listed in October 1970.

Description: About the size of the common cardinal, the red-cockaded woodpecker is approximately 7 inches long (18 to 20 centimeters), with a wingspan of about 15 inches (35 to 38 centimeters). Its back is barred with black and white horizontal stripes. The red-cockaded woodpecker’s most distinguishing feature is a black cap and nape that encircle large white cheek patches. Rarely visible, except perhaps during the breeding season and periods of territorial defense, the male has a small red streak on each side of its black cap called a cockade, hence its name.

The red-cockaded woodpecker feeds primarily on beetles, ants, roaches, caterpillars, wood-boring insects, and spiders, and occasionally fruits and berries.

Range: Historically, this woodpecker’s range extended from Florida to New Jersey and Maryland, as far west as Texas and Oklahoma and inland to Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. Today it is estimated that there are about 6,000 groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers, or 15,000 birds from Florida to Virginia and west to southeast Oklahoma and eastern Texas, representing about 1 percent of the woodpecker’s original range. They have been extirpated in New Jersey, Maryland, Tennessee, Missouri and Kentucky.

Life History: Red-cockaded woodpeckers roost and nest in cavities of live pine trees. Cavities are built only in large, old pines. These woodpeckers live in family groups that may include the male and female, their chicks and young adult “helpers.” These “helpers,” typically related young from previous nesting seasons, help build cavities and care for the future chicks. Pecking a cavity in a live tree takes a long time, since the wood is very hard. The birds peck the bark around the entrance to get the sap (resin) flowing around the hole. The sticky sap keeps predators like snakes away from the nest cavity. The birds also eat insects found under the bark and along the branches of pine trees. Females lay two to four eggs during breeding season. A woodpecker group roosts and nests in a cluster of up to 30 cavity trees. Most clusters have some cavities under construction, some completed and in use and some abandoned.

Habitat: Open pine forests with large, widely-spaced older trees provide essential habitat for the red-cockaded woodpecker.

Distribution: The red-cockaded woodpecker can be found in the piney woods of Eastern North Carolina.

Other: Red-cockaded woodpeckers are endangered because the open forests with big, old pine trees have been replaced by forests with younger, smaller pines. Also, periodic natural fires, which historically kept the pinewoods open, have been suppressed since settlement. Periodic fire is needed to control the brushy understory and keep the pinewoods open.