A meeting is set for October 4, 2021, to determine what the public concerns are with regards to The T.W.R.A.’s plan to deforest part of The Bridgestone Centennial Wilderness Area for the purpose of creating a “Savanna” habitat for Bobwhite Quail. Representative Paul Sherrell is calling for the meeting. As a long time White County resident, Rep. Sherrell has many of the same concerns as everyone else around this area of the county.
The Bridgestone W.M.A. is the only W.M.A. in White County. The main concern is, with plummeting numbers of viable big game in The W.M.A., why is the T.W.R.A. focusing its efforts on this kind of project. The Main decree of the T.W.R.A. is to enhance wildlife. The T.W.R.A. claims that they want to create a “Savanna” in the Bridgestone W.M.A. However, a savanna, by definition, is a flat grassy plain. The Bridgestone W.M.A. is a hilly, rocky, and in some areas very steep and mountainous. Changing the terrain of the W.M.A. to do this would literally take an act of God. I know that The T.W.R.A. has a huge war chest of resources to bring to bear, but I doubt very seriously they have access to the kind of earth moving equipment to adequately satisfy the definition of “Savanna”.
This whole premise is obviously some pipe dream thought up by someone in management of The Bridgestone W.M.A. probably a lifelong bird hunter from either another state, or a different part of Tennessee, and is indifferent to the needs or wants of the White County hunting community as a whole. If so, that would explain away some of the crazy that is presented before us with this “Savanna” idea.
I am sure of one thing, a great number of residents, hunter or not, is absolutely livid about this including lifelong residents, especially, because they have watched as a great hunting area has been decimated through the direct mismanagement of The Bridgestone W.M.A. since they took over that responsibility several years ago.
My neighbor can recall counting fifty or more deer walk past his tree stand while bow hunting in a single day. Now, you can drive the whole three miles from the main road down to the river and never see a deer or turkey, no matter the time of day.