(This statement is intended for use in conjunction with the descriptive text and map pages supplied in the “Guide to Ecological Reserves in British Columbia”).
Features Requiring Special Management Consideration:
- − Main feature and reason for the reserve is a small stand of mature western larch trees growing on an accumulation of large boulders.
- − There is also an unusual occurrence of Pika and an abundance of the northern alligator lizard on the same boulder field.Management Issues:
- Mountain pine beetle damage to lodgepole pines prompted extensive logging in the surroundings. Adjacent clear-cuts have exposed the reserve’s boundaries to the south and west.
- The area of both ER 5 and ER 6 have become easily accessible via new logging roads. However, the old access road which crosses the reserve is now abandoned. This affords the reserve better protection from vehicle-based public use.
- In 1984 the boundaries of the reserve were found to have missed part of the main feature and were subsequently corrected by O.I.C.
- When the reserve was created in 1971 a 66 foot right-of-way was exempted from reserve status for the above mentioned traversing road. This exclusion is now redundant. The road corridor could probably be added now.
- A trapline overlaps with the reserve’s area.
- As elsewhere in this zone, fire is an important factor in the history of this forest. However, the small size and the intent of the reserve, to protect a grove of mature trees, probably exclude even prescribed fires.
Management Actions Required and their Priority:
- Determine with the Ministry of Forests if the 66 foot right-of-way of the now abandoned logging road may be added to the reserve.
- Ensure that the trapline holder is aware of the reserve and exempts it from his operations.