Distinguished conservation professor Don Leopold and writer Bruce Kershner first started documenting old growth trees in the 1980s, writes Rybaak, “when it wasn’t fashionable in environmentalist circles to pay attention to Eastern woods because the nightly news focused everyone on Western stands, the turf of the spotted owl.”
Leopold found various pockets of old-grown forest, such as the 12 acres in Nelson Swamp, east of Cazenovia, a discovery that led Kershner to organize a survey team for Western New York to document what old-growth forest still stood. Later, an Eastern New York survey team formed, and in May of this year, the New York Old Growth Forest Association was created to not only survey the forest, but also function as a nonprofit organization to protect the trees.
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