EPIC is seeking volunteers on April 25th & 26 from 9:30 am – 3:00 pm to help the rare Shasta snow-wreath populations from being invaded by Scotch broom and to avoid drift from toxic herbicides. Please bring gloves, water, lunch and wear long sleeves and hat. EPIC will be providing tools but bring loppers if you have them. There are two main locations we will be working; one is roadside and the other is down in the creek. There is a decent amount of poison oak down by the creek. If you are sensitive to poison oak the roadside location has little to none.
Salt in the Wounds – Act Now to Defend Mature Forests!
Action Alert: On the heels of California’s largest wildfire complex in history the Grindstone Ranger District (RD) on the east side of the Mendocino National Forest recently released a scoping notice for the Salt project. In essence, timber planners are looking to kill trees to save them from insects and disease. The project is within the Salt Creek watershed, where up to 3,000 acres could be logged with limited review of environmental threats, such as increased fire risk, and minimal opportunity for public involvement and legal recourse.
The Lassen Pack has grown! Up to five pups, two confirmed, were born this spring. The wolf family now includes the new puppies, three yearlings and the alpha pair. The pair was first spotted traveling together in 2016. The alpha male (CA08M) is now four years old. He is the son of famous OR-7 of the Rouge Pack. Genetics of the alpha female (LAS01F) indicate she may have traveled from Idaho. In June 2017 she was captured and fit with a GPS collar weighing in at seventy-five pounds. Surveys for the pup count are ongoing.
On Monday, EPIC formally objected to the Seiad-Horse Project on the Klamath National Forest. The Seiad–Horse project threatens to clearcut over 1,000 acres along the Siskiyou Crest, on the California-Oregon border. It is one of multiple US Forest Service timber sales in the region that is likely to adversely affect threatened species. EPIC’s objection puts the Forest Service on notice that the timber sale violates the law and sets forth what the agency can do to avoid litigation.
ACTION ALERT: The Klamath National Forest has done it again, planning over 1,200 acres of post-fire logging adjacent to the Pacific Crest Trail on the steep slopes of the Siskiyou Crest. The Seiad-Horse Creek project would: significantly increase sediment in already impaired watersheds critical for salmon, require “take” or killing of threatened species, harm wildlife connectivity, and affect Roadless and Botanical Areas. Rather than fully address the impacts through an Environmental Impact Statement, the Forest Service released a Draft Environmental Analysis (EA) initiating the public scoping comment period.
Stop Mendocino National Forest Clearcutting!!!
Take Action Now: The Mendocino National Forest is proposing roughly 1,000 acres of even-aged logging – basically clearcutting – in the headwaters of Grindstone Creek. This includes; green tree retention, group selection, overstory removal and shelterwood seed cut. Green tree retention removes 85% of the trees, group selection equates to mini-clearcuts, overstory removal cuts all the big trees and leaves the smaller ones and shelterwood leaves a few large trees to provide a future seed source.
EPIC recently submitted an objection to the Horse Creek Project— 1,700 acres of post-fire clearcutting in the 2016 Gap Fire footprint. An administrative objection is the way to formally challenge a Forest Service project, prior to litigation. Our lawsuit against the Klamath National Forest, for clearcutting nearly 10,000 acres after the 2014 Westside Fires, has yet to be heard in Federal Court. Both of these timber sales expect to kill or adversely harm salmon and their essential fish habitat.
For the first time since 1924, wild wolves are roaming California. Below are the wolves who call (or have called) our state home. OR-7, also known as Journey was born into the Imnaha Pack in 2009. He was the first confirmed wolf in the Golden State in nearly 100 years. In 2011 and 2012 he roamed over 4000 miles before eventually finding a mate and establishing a territory in southern Oregon in 2013. He had his first pups in 2014 just across the border in the Rouge-Siskiyou National Forest. His pack remains there and continues to grow, having a successful litter four years in a row.
With recent snow on the ground, wildfire remains to be a hot topic. Headlines hype fire hysteria during summer months but no attention is paid to the extreme consequences of fire fighting. The necessary and beneficial effects to our forest ecosystems go unnoticed while a million dollars a day is being spent on putting them out. The monetary costs are easy to equate but the ecological costs are rarely publicized. To shed light on what takes place during and after a fire event, Luke Ruediger has put together a report of the Gap Fire that burned this summer on the Klamath National Forest.
The Klamath National Forest repeatedly stated in its Westside documents that all legacy trees would be kept standing. From what we have seen, KNF has been cutting and removing these biological legacies at a rapid pace and more are threatened. Legacy trees, i.e. old growth snags and live trees are defined as disproportionately large diameter trees that are often remnants of the previous stand on a given site. They are old standing trees that have persisted on the landscape after man-made and natural disturbances.
The Westside salvage logging project on the Klamath National Forest (KNF) is having more than severe ecological costs. The Forest Service forecasted making over ten million dollars in timber sale revenue. In reality, the agency brought in less than 5% of that estimate. Timber corporations paid $457,000 to log 13,000 acres in the heart of the Klamath Siskiyou bioregion, which is the equivalent of $35 per acre.
The Shasta Pack of Northern California is a family of seven gray wolves, two adults and five pups! The California Department of Fish and Wildlife just released photos of the pack, which are all dark in color. The pups appear to be a few months old and approximately 35-40 pounds. The Department had set up additional trail cameras after earlier photographs recorded a single canid in May and July. More photographs and video of the Shasta Pack are expected next week.