The concept of emulating natural disturbance has emerged in
forestry as a management strategy that seeks to maintain economic
benefits from clearcutting while sustaining the structure
and composition of boreal forests (Bergeron et al., 2002). Two
observations provide the rationale; (1) boreal forests experience
frequent disturbances and possess inherent resilience to recover
from them, and (2) boreal fauna have adapted in such a way that
they can persist in this disturbance driven forest ecosystem. The
emulation approach speculates, for example, that whereby wildlife
species are adapted to wildfire, the predominant disturbance in
unmanaged boreal forests, they should likewise adapt to timber
harvesting, if practices are applied whose outcomes resemble the
effects of wildfire. This study was motivated by the considerable