Greg Fetters, a retired accountant, walks his 134-acre property in Essex County’s Town of Jay every day no matter the conditions. He puts microspikes on his boots when it’s icy; clicks into bindings when the snow is deep enough to ski; wears long sleeves and a hat when the bugs are thick.
Along the way, he makes a mental note of trees that have been blown over by wind, felled by beavers, or are showing signs of distress. This prepares him for late fall when he spends nearly every weekend cutting, hauling, and splitting wood that will be used to heat his home in winter. “This process really connects me to the land,” he says.
After seeing fields and forests turned into housing lots in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Wilmington, Delaware as he grew up, Greg knew he didn’t want that for his land. He decided to put his Adirondack property under a conservation easement and now takes comfort on those daily excursions in knowing the forest will remain a forest long after he is gone. The easement restricts development while allowing for forest management. His land is enrolled in New York State’s timber management program called 480a, which helps to reduce his property taxes.
Greg’s eyes light up when he talks about the wildlife he has seen on his jaunts, including black bears, fishers, otters, porcupines, owls, great blue herons, and other critters. The day he saw a moose was unforgettable. “At first, I thought it was somebody’s horse that wandered away but no—it had antlers and it was huge!” he recalls.
That moose could have been passing through on its way to the nearby Jay Mountain Wilderness. Greg’s wildlife encounters help to illustrate how private land conservation, in combination with public land conservation such as the New York State Forest Preserve, keeps the broader Adirondack landscape connected and resilient to threats like climate change, invasive species, and habitat loss.
For more information on conserving forests on private land here, visit the Protect Your Forest section of our website.