In The News

July 24, 2015
By Guy McCarthy
The Union Democrat

Republicans in Congress are pushing The Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2015. But rather than improving forest, watershed or wildlife health, as its authors claim, the Act will streamline the destruction and removal of forest habitat, including the majority of the most biodiverse habitat found in the forest – mature and old forest which has burned at high-intensity.

July 6, 2015
By David Downey
The Press Enterprise

Colorful recovery of 14,000-acre Butler 2 fire burn offers glimpse of future for the forested areas torched by the Lake fire.

December 24, 2014
Associated Press
By Scott Smith

Steep declines in owl populations and unchecked logging of mature/old forest and post-fire “snag” forest necessitate the listing of the California Spotted Owl under the Endangered Species Act.

Environmentalists filed a lawsuit Thursday against a federal agency, saying it aims to protect the California spotted owl living in the burned forests marked for logging after the third-largest wildfire in state history.

33 breeding pairs of the declining spotted owls have taken up residence in burned forest in the Rim Fire area, will these homeranges be destroyed by logging or protected?

The Pacific fisher, a small, carnivorous forest-dwelling mammal, is a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act this year, and big wildfire could be to blame – or rather, the lack of it.

Scientists using field notes from surveys first conducted by the government before the Civil War believe they’ve gained a better understanding of how Western wildfires behaved historically.

Smokey Bear has done such a good job stamping out forest fires the past half-century that a woodpecker that’s survived for millions of years is in danger of going extinct.