Centennial Forest Hunting
Teresa Gallagher
“Centennial Forest” is scatter across many towns and much of that is open to hunting (see map http://www.ct.gov/dep/lib/dep/wildlife/pdf_files/maps/maps_hunting_area/map9148a.pdf )
These are the water company lands for which the state purchased certain recreation and development rights a few years back. There are 700 acres of Centennial Forest in Shelton, all of it closed to the public. I contacted Aquarion regarding the status of these lands that are located in Shelton and whether they might be opening them to hunting. There is a strictly defined process for determining recreational uses of Centennial Forest via the Conservation Land Committee, consisting representatives from DEP, the Nature Conservancy, and Aquarion.
The answer was that they are already in the process of adding Shelton lands open to hunting. The lands were mapped, will be evaluated by the CTDEP Hunt Review Team, and then an application needs to be submitted to the CT Dept of Health. They are hoping the lands will be open for the 2011 hunting season. They did not specify which of the 700 acres might be opened for hunting.
Because these lands are very strictly closed to the public, it would seem like a good place for hunting to occur. And it does help protect the watershed, since overbrowsed forests are showing signs of erosion to our west.
By the way, a recent study showed much higher levels of Lyme and Babeosis infection in ticks in Fairfield County than earlier studies, and a physician in Danbury is quoted as saying he has seen an increase in Babeosis over the past couple years. It used to be that just 1 in 5 ticks was infected with Lyme, and Babeosis was very rare. Now it seems that most ticks in Fairfield County are infected, often with both. See article at http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/ci_13882188?IADID=Search-www.stamfordadvocate.com-www.stamfordadvocate.com
-T
Bill Dyer
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Shelton Conservation Commission" group.
To post to this group, send email to shel...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sheltoncc+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sheltoncc?hl=en.