http://bronxbackthen.blogspot.com/2011/12/bronxs-hemlock-forest.html

I’m all for researching wildlands, but I have to wonder how man’s impact in the rural areas around their forest effect their research. As just one example, I can’t see how an area that small could have its own herds of deer. Many of the animals which live in that forest must range outside of it,  a bobcat or coyote surely would and even small rodents might. Even if research is limited to plants, what effects does man’s nearby influence have upon these plants? And is fallow farmland from a century-and-a-half ago really a useful proxy for areas untouched by man’s saws? I do suppose that the area is probably a useful proxy for other of these overgrown farms, and previously cleared areas do make up the majority of the East’s forests.

It seems to me this is most likely the world’s most studied forest only because it is a convenient forest to study. I know that there isn’t much “wilderness” left in Massachusetts, but surely there are better wilderness areas to study in Maine and Vermont.