Finding+Champion+Trees-+The+Wake+Audubon+Society

On January Ninth I attended the monthly Wake Audubon Society's meeting in the Museum of Natural Science. The presentation was centered around the finding of Champion Trees and Gary Williams' stories about how he has gone across the country and found a total of 8 national champion trees and many more state and co national-champs. A champion tree is a tree which is the largest recorded tree of its species, they are measured off a basis of points. The point system works so you get 1 point for every foot the tree is tall, 1 point for every inch in circumference (circumference is measures at 4 and a half feet up the tree) and a quarter point for every foot across the tree from longest eastward limb to longest westward limb. Mr. Williams showed many pictures of beautiful champion and co-champion trees including many snags that had lived for so long that they died yet still held the record.

This topic related back to Apes by going into depth about champion trees, where they are, how they are measured and how common it is to find them. Many trees are protected by national forest programs and wild life refuges that we have talked about in class. He often referenced the Congeree national forest in South Carolina which is the habitat for many of the champions which he referred too and he also mentioned that many of these trees were in danger until the early 60's when they all officially became protected.