Pat borrowed this "Brush Cat" from the research unit. He's been using it on the slopes of Hickey Hill. It's enabled him to level stands of Smilax like the one in the top picture and create clear areas. It can take down large shrubs and small trees too. The bottom picture shows bare space that was totally overgrown minutes before. Of course we'll have to come in and treat the undesirables as they resprout. At least we can walk the area now. That means we can cut the ivy off the canopy trees. It looks like it'll be possible to reclaim this area within the next year or so. Wow.
We've been working at spaces like this and making progress, but it's slow going with chainsaws, brush cutters, and handsaws. Now we've got an edge. We can get the overgrown sites back to native vegetation and maintain them that way or use them to expand our germplasm collections.
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