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There is plenty of logging going on in Oregon where I live. Huge sections of forests are still being logged and every year Cascadia Wildlands does field check outings to see the area of these timber sales and almost always there are several old growth trees still included in these timber sales.
Cascadia Wildlands measures the trees and while most are second growth, there are old growth dispersed in those forests. Those timber sales are habitat for the owls, one example is the N126 Windy Peak unit timber sale. Known spotted owl habitat, old-growth trees, marbled murrelett, coho salmon etc...
So yes, spotted owl habitat is indeed still being logged.
Logging in managed forest is NOT affecting spotted owl habitat.
Spotted owls will only reside in old growth forest, which is now mostly protected. Lack of logging may lead to more wildfires though, as 509 says above.
Barred owls will live in younger managed forest. THIS adaptability is the reason for their success.
The environmental community thinks this is a good thing.
You are sounding a bit shrill and hyperbolic here. Why do you think the environmental community thinks all of these massive climate change driven fires are good things?
Public participation in this I believe will be very tightly monitored. Someone would need a permit and all kills would need to be recorded. That would make sense but it is the government.
And, in a twist of fate, hunting licenses are issued by states, not the federal government. Surely this raises some interesting legal questions regarding jurisdictional limits to a program like this...
And, in a twist of fate, hunting licenses are issued by states, not the federal government. Surely this raises some interesting legal questions regarding jurisdictional limits to a program like this...
The authority issued to individuals in order to cull owls would not be a "hunting" license. It would probably be administered as some sort of injurious wildlife control permit, possibly through USDA/AHIS. Private individuals can get such permits to control starlings, gulls, corvids, pigeons, birds preying on hatchery fish, etc.
Last edited by Parnassia; 01-08-2024 at 04:22 PM..
Logging in managed forest is NOT affecting spotted owl habitat.
Spotted owls will only reside in old growth forest, which is now mostly protected. Lack of logging may lead to more wildfires though, as 509 says above.
Barred owls will live in younger managed forest. THIS adaptability is the reason for their success.
Well, I disagree.
Selling National Forest BLM land with KNOWN SPOTTED OWLS is in fact affecting their habitat.
I gave one example above; a timber sale that had known spotted owl habitat, known as the N126 Windy Peak unit timber sale. You can read more about it here: https://www.cascwild.org/n126-timber-sale/
This was from 2022 however it's just one example that forests that include homes for spotted owls is still being threatened.
Another example of timber sales that included habitat for spotted owls in Oregon was the Poor Windy and Evans Creek timber sales. (from 2022) "The judge ruled against the Service’s claim that old-growth logging in the Poor Windy and Evans Creek timber sales on 15,848 acres of threatened northern spotted owl habitat would not harm the imperiled bird species."
https://www.tillamookheadlightherald...a54994d34.html
“While we are pleased with this result, it goes to show how emboldened our public land managers have become in pursuing the almighty board-foot, that they are willing to tell the American people and a federal judge that logging thousands of acres of habitat occupied by a threatened species like the northern spotted owl will cause zero ‘harm,’†said Sangye Ince-Johannsen, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center.
Luckily the judge ruled against U.S. Fish and Wildlife for those BLM timber sales, however again it shows logging is still aggressively done and negatively affecting the northern spotted owl. If it wasn't for environmentalists suing over those timber sales the sale would have went through as planned and over 15,000 acres of forest would have been logged.
Last edited by Wintergirl80; 01-08-2024 at 06:02 PM..
That blog is about westside fires in Oregon and Washington and very specifically about west-side fires of 2020, not the massive eastside fires that 509 is talking about or the California fires. Incidentally I got to "enjoy" seeing (or not seeing) and breathing the smoke from all those westside CA and OR fires working as a fire lookout that year.
I got an A in Meteorology and registered for a climatology course once, but I dropped it so I don't think I have the chops to debate him, lol. But I do have questions.
The first one is, has he published this in a scientific journal? I'd be interested to see the response of people who do have the chops to debate him. I realize this one contrarian and very narrowly focused view is enough for some people to run with and erroneously apply to all western fires, but expert opinion, especially one expert's opinion, is low quality evidence. That doesn't mean he is wrong, he might very well be right about the westside fires of 2020. I have no problem with that.
Another question I'd like to ask him or anyone with his credentials is whether it's safe to assume that westside fires will occur under the same set of environmental conditions as they occur today. A lot of the variables will be changing with climate change (which he admits is happening NOW). Even if east winds decrease under climate change, other risk variables could conceivably increase and arguably will.
I hope you read the comments below rather than just cherry picking his conclusion as sweeping proof of your existing beliefs. There are some very good comments and questions and that's where some real learning can happen.
There is plenty of logging going on in Oregon where I live. Huge sections of forests are still being logged and every year Cascadia Wildlands does field check outings to see the area of these timber sales and almost always there are several old growth trees still included in these timber sales.
Cascadia Wildlands measures the trees and while most are second growth, there are old growth dispersed in those forests. Those timber sales are habitat for the owls, one example is the N126 Windy Peak unit timber sale. Known spotted owl habitat, old-growth trees, marbled murrelett, coho salmon etc...
So yes, spotted owl habitat is indeed still being logged.
Yeah, anyone who says there is a lack of logging in the PNW, probably doesn't live here, or they are not paying attention. The highways are jammed with log trucks filled with newly cut down old growth trees.
Logging in managed forest is NOT affecting spotted owl habitat.
Spotted owls will only reside in old growth forest, which is now mostly protected. Lack of logging may lead to more wildfires though, as 509 says above.
Barred owls will live in younger managed forest. THIS adaptability is the reason for their success.
That is just pro logging interest propaganda. The fact is that before white people showed up in the PNW, the forests were filled with thousand year old, old growth trees. Since then the forests have almost all been turned into tree farms.
If logging was the solution, there would be no forest fires today.
If you want to save the spotted owls, protect their habitat by not cutting down the trees they live in, or letting them burn down. But at this point that is probably easier said than done. It's probably 40 - 50 years too late anyway.
You are sounding a bit shrill and hyperbolic here. Why do you think the environmental community thinks all of these massive climate change driven fires are good things?
Because they said so.
They filed law suits to stop the National Park Service form protecting the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia's. They filed law suits to prevent towns from burning down in Oregon. Chad Hanson representing the Sierra Club has said wildfires are good for the environment.
I am "shrill and hyperbolic" here because the environmentalist are LITERALLY burning down our public forests.
I spent 50 years as a professional forester working for the National Park Service, Forest Service, BLM, and private.
I didn't go into forestry to watch a bunch of spoiled, rich folks destroy our forests. That is what is happening.
Our grandchildren will judge us harshly for letting the environmentalist destroy their forests.
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