The town of Warren will purchase and conserve a parcel of land that contains an important wildlife corridor. At a Tuesday, June 11, meeting, the Warren Select Board voted to buy an approximately 8-acre parcel of land on Elliott Farm Road in East Warren. Conditions of the sale stipulate that the land remain undeveloped, as a section of the parcel is in the Brook Road Wildlife Corridor (BRWC).
The parcel’s former owner, Cathy Miller, proposed selling it to the town in March of this year, following the creation of the parcel through a boundary line adjustment of Miller’s two existing lots on Eliott Farm Road off Airport Road. The conditions of the sale state that the land must be kept undeveloped for perpetuity, with the management plan highlighting and focusing its value as a wildlife corridor and habitat. Another portion of the parcel, which is in cultivation for hay, can remain that way if the cultivation meets organic standards.
Miller sold the land for $10,000, which she said would help cover the cost of preparing the sale. The funds will come out of the town’s conservation budget.
Warren Conservation Commission chair Jito Coleman said during the June 11 select board meeting that commissioners agreed that the town should acquire the parcel, as the BRWC is a habitat they have been working to protect.
The BRWC – located between Brook and Airport/Dump Road, west of Plunkton Road – is approximately 250 acres of mostly closed-canopy forest that includes the Freeman Brook. Thick, woody plant cover at the edges of the brook facilitate the movement of wildlife, with the corridor acting as a zone of connection between several blocks of forested habitat in the larger landscape – with Mount Abe to the west, Rice and Burnt Mountains to the east, Warren Pinnacle to the North, and Mills Brook/Lincoln Gap to the south.
Coleman said the corridor offers protection for wildlife in that species cannot easily be seen, and face little interference from dogs, vehicles and other factors that don’t allow wildlife to move freely and safely.
The consulting firm Arrowwood Environmental (AE), which the town has hired to conduct various ecological assessments since 2007, said the corridor contains an abundance of food for wildlife, like berries and beechnuts, as well as containing lots of small prey like mice and voles.
After soliciting wildlife sighting from Warren residents, consultants took field walks and noted evidence of eastern coyote, grey fox, red fox, mink, fisher, white-tailed deer, black bear and other species – especially along the Freeman Brook crossing at Plunkton Road. In a memo to the town, they called it “a remarkable example of a wild forest amongst a more developed surrounding.”
