South Hero Natural Resources Inventory

In 2024 the South Hero Conservation Commission contracted with South Hero Land Trust to create for the town a phase one Natural Resources Inventory (NRI), a tool used for mapping and analyzing the natural elements of a landscape, such as wildlife habitat, productive soils, wetlands, forests, wildlife crossings, and more.

The goal of this NRI is so that residents, local land managers, town planners, and partner organizations can understand the ecological value of these resources, as well as help guide development in ways that protect ecosystem health. It is also a helpful tool for fostering appreciation, stewardship, and conservation of nature for the benefit of our human and biological community.

This NRI was created by South Hero Land Trust, with assistance from UVM student and SHLT intern Parker Rouse, following best practices provided by the Vermont State Fish & Wildlife Departments “ Mapping Vermont’s Natural Heritage: A Mapping and Conservation Guide for Municipal and Regional Planners in Vermont .” Special thanks to Jens Hilke, Conservation Planner at Vermont Fish & Wildlife, and Lincoln Frasca, Natural Resources Planner of Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, and the whole team who manages the  Vermont Environmental Leadership Training Course 

Phase One includes creation of maps using data collected from existing, publicly available resource inventories, maps, and surveys, displayed here in this Storymap. Included below are also narrative analyses and interpretation, as well as additional links and resources to provide more context.

Phase 1 will also include a public meeting to share the Storymap, using it as a jumping off point to engage the community in the process of understanding and appreciating our natural resources, as well as setting goals and priorities for future phases. 

Phase Two, the specifics of which are still to be determined, may involve on-the-ground work to verify the mapped resources and discover unmapped resources, to be added to the StoryMap along with further analysis and interpretation of the inventory items, and/or other goals as directed by the townspeople.

This report begins with an introduction and overview of the findings provided by South Hero Land Trust. Scrolling down further, you will find various maps, each with their own combination of related layers, accompanied by a summary of findings. Click on a map feature to see a popup about that feature. Use the zoom and pan features to explore the map. Use the legend button in the bottom left to see more information.

Finally, at the end of the maps section you will find a collection of links to source material and further reading.

From rugged shorelines of ancient cedars clinging to shale cliffs, to green fields filled with the warble of bobolinks and the buzzing of grasshoppers, South Hero is full of natural beauty and wonder. My hope with this project is that it will help each of us appreciate the unique natural character of South Hero, ground us in accurate data and understandings as we make decisions about what happens on the land, foster interesting conversations in the community, and whet our appetite for deepening our understanding and connection with the world around us.

Creating this storymap left me with many questions. And I hope it sparks your curiosity as well. For example, how does geologic diversity match up with land use such as farming? Or, how tight is the correlation between what natural areas we value (as in the community values mapping, see below) and what areas are highlighted by State and Regional planners as being of high ecological value?

Looking into the future, most of the data displayed here has not been surveyed on the ground. For example, while we have great information about areas of natural cover, we don't have information on specific natural communities. Which, would be a helpful dataset in allowing us to fine tune planning, zoning, and conservation priorities for the town in ways that benefit our local ecology.

We each come to this inventory with a different lens. Some of us may be focused on the conservation side of things, while others are looking at housing and rural development. What I love about natural resource inventories is that they bridge the gap between these two considerations. Here in Vermont we need to be strategic in where and how we conserve lands for the benefit of biodiversity, resilience to climate change, water quality, access to recreation, etc. At the same time, we also desperately need affordable housing and support for sustaining our rural economy, so that people in our communities can have places to live and work.

Both of these goals are outlined in detail in the  2023-2031 South Hero Town Plan . Vermont also has newly enacted legislation, such as the  H.126, the Community Resilience and Biodiversity Protection Act  (Act 59), which sets targets of conserving 30 percent of land in the state by 2030 and 50 percent by 2050, and  H.171, Forest Blocks and Habitat Connectors , which encourages towns to map connected forest areas and wildlife corridors. This NRI provides a first step in helping us craft policy and work together to achieve these goals. As you read below I hope you are inspired to get involved. Feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions or comments about this inventory. And stay tuned for upcoming public events on this topic!

Warmly,

Guy Maguire Executive Director South Hero Land Trust guy@shlt.org

During the Cambrian and Ordovician periods of about 450-550 million years ago, most of what is now Vermont was covered by an ancient sea, called the Iapetus. This vast, shallow, warm body of water deposited various sediments which, over millions of years, hardened into the bedrock of shales and limestones we see in South Hero today. Then, around 400 millions years ago the Iapetus sea began to close, as the Taconic Island chain, once offshore, collided with the mainland, causing The Taconic orogeny, a mountain building period where the buckling of continental plates created the ancestors of todays Green Mountains, as well as surrounding foothills. The town is divided geologically into two sections - the eastern 2/3rds is mostly one type of Ordovician Stony Point Shale (OSP), and the western part is a diverse mix of shales and limestones from this period, turned on their side, twisted, and exposed in different places due to past shifting of tectonic plates, erosion, glacial scouring, and other factors.

More recently, during the various ice age events of the past 100,000 years, South Hero was at times covered by glaciers over a mile thick, which over the course of hundreds of cycles of glacial retreat and advance, left an accretion of compacted, aggregated rocks, gravel, and other material, which we call till. The retreating glaciers formed ice dams to the north, blocking drainage, and creating glacial lakes, (i.e. Lake Vermont) a time period around 13,5000 years ago in which mud and silt was deposited in the low, slow water spots.

Then, as the last ice dam finally gave way around 12,000 years ago, the sea rushed in, owing to the fact that the earths crust had been depressed below sea level, give the thousands of years of ice weighing down on it. Rivers continued to bring their loads of silt and nutrients into the sea. Beaches came and went, leaving pockets of marine sand and beach gravel in places. Finally, as the land rebounded, the connection with the ocean was reversed, and the water once again began to flow north, the salinity decreased, and the water level dropped, creating the outline of Lake Champlain as we know it today.

Fun fact - While the Champlain Sea is long gone, remnant populations of salt-water adapted beach plants still remain in South Hero, who have adapted to the lack of salinity and evolved into their own subpopulations, far from their cousins growing today along the coastlines of New England.

Since before the start of the Lake Champlain Era, further depositions of silt, sand, and clay have continued up until today, creating the top layers of the soil as we know it. Because of that past history of frequent flooding and inundation, many layers of nutrient-rich clays and silts make up the soil in South Hero, which, given the nutrient-rich limestone bedrock, combines to create a landscape full of productive soils which give rise to both natural diversity and abundance of plant and animal life, and productive land for agriculture.

Which you can see in the map below by the fact that most soils in South Hero are considered "prime" or "statewide" a designation given to the best growing soils in Vermont. Learn more about the criteria for  prime soils HERE>> 

South Hero today is a mix of open fields, wetlands, forests, with development scattered along major roads and low-density residential areas. In the map below you can view development (red and black) and ag lands (light brown) superimposed over natural features such as deciduous (light green) and coniferous (dark green) forests, wetlands (blue), streams and ponds. Learn more about how these datasets were created  HERE>> 

On an island with diverse geology, soils, and topography, South Hero is home to a great diversity of flora and fauna. Many rare, threatened, and uncommon species call South Hero home as well.

In the map below the turquoise shapes represent  habitat blocks , or areas of natural cover (including forest, wetland, shrubland, rivers, streams, lakes & ponds).

Habitat Blocks vary in size from small to very large. From a conservation perspective, larger is better, because many species depend on large areas to have viable populations. For that reason, this map only show blocks 20 acres or larger. Habitat fragmentation, i.e. the breaking up of habitat via roads or other development, is one of the primary causes of biodiversity collapse at the global level.

Habitat Blocks are an essential unit in conservation planning. Not all development is equally impactful to wildlife and biodiversity. Since they encompass important habitats for a huge range of species, protecting these blocks indirectly protects the many other species that use them.

The red and green hatched shapes represent the known locations of rare plant (green) and animal (red) species in South Hero. Logically, the amount and locations of rare species is probably greater, given this data layer was not created via comprehensive survey, but rather field observations. Exact species specific locations are obscured from the general public, due to the unfortunate history of poaching of rare species.

Natural communities are “an assemblage of plants and animals that repeats across the landscape wherever similar environmental conditions occur. A Natural Community type is a concept, or a category, not a place. Each type is described by summarizing the known examples of the type, and these types are used to classify the landscape of Vermont. As more is learned over time, the classification continues to evolve.” ( Learn more about natural communities at VT F&W Here>> )

There are 97 different Natural Community types in Vermont. South Hero has at least 16 types. However, there has never been a comprehensive mapping of South Hero's Natural Communities. Data we do have is via the Vermont Natural Heritage Inventory (VNHI) maintained by the VT F&W's Wildlife Diversity Program (purple, in the map below). Doubtless a complete survey of South Hero would yield more types. Nonetheless, Natural Communities currently known to be found in South Hero include:

• Maple-Green Ash Swamp
• Limestone Bluff Cedar-Pine Forest
• Wet Clayplain Forest
• Oak-Pine-Northern Hardwood Forest
• Mesic Maple-Ash-Hickory-Oak Forest
• Dry Oak-Hickory-Hophornbeam Forest
• Dry Oak-Maple Limestone Forest
• Cattail Marsh
• Deep Broadleaf Marsh
• Red Cedar Woodland
• Silver Maple-Sensitive Fern Floodplain Forest
• Wet Sand-Over-Clay Forest
• Lake Shale or Cobble Beach
• Deep Bulrush Marsh
• Lake Sand Beach
• Sand Dune

Learn more about Natural Community types at  VT ANR F&W HERE>> 

And, for a deep rundown on the subject, we highly recommend checking out the book  Wetland, Woodland, Wildland: A Guide to the Natural Communities of Vermont . Release date: November 11, 2019 By  Elizabeth H. Thompson ,  Eric R. Sorenson  and  Robert J. Zaino  

Finally, the road segments outlined in red represent important wildlife crossing locations, usually because they represent the point of contact between two 20+ acre habitat blocks.

In May, 2023, the South Hero Conservation Commission & South Hero Land Trust hosted a community values mapping event online and in-person to engage residents in learning more about the range of values residents care about. The event was facilitated by Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department. This included an in-person values mapping event on 5/2/23 and an online values mapping activity on 5/9/23. Participants were placed in six small groups during the in-person event and two small groups online (Teams 7 & 8). Together these responses were combined into eight value groups including: Scenic, Recreation, Cultural / Historical, Hunting & Fishing, Community, Ecological, Working landscapes, & Spiritual.

You can check out the  final report HERE>>  and the  final maps HERE>> . Below is a heat map representing overlapping value groups, the darker the shade, the more overlap between groups.

What follows is a map created using two data layers provided by  Vermont Conservation Design , a program of VT ANR - one that identifies landscape level priorities and one that is more specific to local species and natural communities.

Landscape Level: The lands and waters identified in the landscape-level are the areas of the state that are of highest priority for maintaining ecological integrity. Together, these lands comprise a connected landscape of large and intact forested habitat, healthy aquatic and riparian systems, and a full range of physical features (bedrock, soils, elevation, slope, and aspect) on which plant and animal natural communities depend.

When conserved or managed appropriately to retain or enhance ecological function, these lands will sustain Vermont's natural legacy into the future.

Community/Species Level: At the community scale we see features that are significant and/or high quality examples of natural features that are vital to animal and plant diversity, as well as habitats and locations on which rare and uncommon species rely.

On the map below we have included both the landscape (light green) and community/species level (dark green).

Below is a compilation map that shows extant town zoning & planning, and lands conserved through South Hero Land Trust and partner organizations. Outlined in yellow below are all the lands currently (as of January 2025) protected in perpetuity via a conservation easement or some other method. Most of these lands are in private ownership, and most include a mix of farmland and natural areas. Also included are layers provided by the Town of South Hero, including zoning districts, a flood hazard overlay, and a conservation layer.

South Hero Land Trust and the South Hero Conservation Commission hope this Phase 1 Natural Resources Inventory can be the catalyst for informed and engaged discussion around the future of development, conservation, agriculture and many other topics.

Next steps:

1. Hosting a public outreach event related to the Phase 1 NRI and inviting comment from the community
2. Creating a pdf version of the Phase 1 NRI
3. Draft a plan, timeline, list of potential contractors, goals etc. for Phase 2, with community input.

SHLT recommends these things be included in a Phase 2

1. On the ground work to verify mapped resources is a necessary next step, both to correct any errors that may be present in the above maps, and also to add relevant data that may be absent.
2. A natural communities layer is a key missing piece of this inventory. Conserving local biodiversity requires local knowledge on what assembles of plants, animals, and ecosystems are present on the landscape.
3. Stewardship recommendations tailored for each natural community type would be invaluable in helping landowners, land managers and developers incorporate considerations that protect biodiversity, water quality, etc. For example, knowing the location and extent of ash-dominant forests would help us know where to best look for EAB-resilient ash.
4. Cross-Analysis of the NRI Phase 1 and the South Hero 2023-2031 Town Plan to determine opportunities for further analysis, policy, and town planning.
5. Information on recreational assets such as trails, boat launches, public parks, beaches, lands open to hunting etc.
6. Analysis of existing data to help rank significant natural resources, identify recommendations for best areas for development, wildlife conservation, and agriculture, and other extrapolations to assist town planners.

 South Hero 2023-2030 Town Plan 

 Town of South Hero: Conservation Commission 

 South Hero Land Trust 

 Vermont Conservation Design 

 What is Conservation Design (storymap) 

 Vermont Open Geodata Portal 

 Biofinder Mapping Tool 

 South Hero Community Values Mapping