Gibraltar Students Visit Pen Park Logging Operation

Logger Jason Hanstedt explains the steps he takes to prepare trees for the mill. Photo by Kathleen Harris.

Gibraltar Elementary School fourth graders and high school students visited a logging operation site in Peninsula State Park in early December. In addition to removing non-native Scotch Pine, loggers are selectively thinning a number of conifer plantations on several small parcels (two percent of total park acreage). Students learned how thinning improves forest health and saw a wood processor in action. The site they visited was planted in the 1920s and has been thinned at least twice in the past 30 years. For more information about the project, contact Peninsula State Park at 920.868.3258.