They're your public lands, but you just
can't go there?
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| January 13, 2012 |
Publisher's note: This letter first appeared
on the website of the Flatlander,
www.bonnersferrynews.com, as an open letter
to the many people who will be directly affected
by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to
designate more than 600 square miles as critical
habitat for the Selkirk Mountain caribou.
Several attempts to contact the author for
permission to reprint went unanswered. Due to a
looming deadline on a decision that will have
substantial impact on the future of North Idaho,
and because it was labeled an open letter, I
chose to violate my usual policies of either
requesting permission to re-publish or of
verifying that the author wrote the words
submitted and intended them for publication.
Mike Weland
Publisher
Now is the time for citizens of Boundary County
to join together to make your opinions known
regarding the latest land closures outlined in
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's caribou
critical habitat proposal. We need to join with
the residents of Bonner County to challenge the
rule proposed.
Having been quietly released, the open public
comment period is nearly over, as it closes
January 30, 2012. Few, if any public or town
hall community meetings were held informing and
educating the general public of the facts
contained in this proposal.
To submit comments, members of the public should
sign onto a computer and go to this web link:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FWS-R1-ES-2011-0096-0001.
The caribou critical habitat proposal for the
Selkirk Mountains is the result of a 2009
settlement agreement (court order) which
stipulated that the USFWS would submit a
proposed critical habitat rule to the
Federal Register on or before
November 20, 2011.
This proposal, having been initiated by a
petition submitt to the USFWS by the
preservation community, which includes but is
not limited to Defenders of Wildlife,
Washington, D.C., The Lands Council, Spokane,
the Selkirk Conservation Alliance, Priest River,
Idaho, and the Center for Biological Diversity,
Tucson, Arizona.
In other words, the petition finds its way to
court where the legal system directs the USFWS
to generate the proposal and follow the
Endangered Species Act regulatory process rather
than the employment of sound and proven forest
practice techniques.
This is no way to manage any forest ecosystem,
not to mention our public national forest.
"The primary threat to the species' survival
is the loss of contiguous old growth forest
habitat due to timber harvest and wildfires,"
reads a
press release issued by USFWS November 29,
2011. "Human activities such as road
building and recreational trails can also
fragment caribou habitat and facilitate the
movement of predators into the caribou's range."
Along with numerous small wildfires, the
large 1910 Trapper Peak and Sundance fires
burned extensively throughout the Selkirk
Mountain range of Idaho which, by way of nature,
eliminated the largest majority of old growth
forest within the proposal area as well as most
adjoining areas. Combined with these multiple
fires and over 100 years of a forest
prescription of Multiple Use Management
consisting of logging, road building and trail
maintenance, a contiguous old growth forest
within the Selkirk range of Idaho is long since
and cannot be regained.
Furthermore, according to the press release, it
is feared that road building and recreational
trails fragment habitat and facilitate the
movement of predators INTO the
caribou's range.
In fact, the movement of predators INTO
caribou's range has been facilitated
not by roads and trails so much as by the
introduction of predatory species, such as the
Canadian Grey Wolf, by the USFWS.
Again, the USFWS states, "The primary threat
to the species' survival is the loss of
contiguous old growth forest habitats due to
timber harvest and wildfires."
The Selkirk Mountain Range of Idaho is not,
and has not been managed as primitive nor as
wilderness. As a consequence, a quick review of
the satellite imagery easily displays visual
evidence of logging, roads and trails existing
in virtually every drainage within the range.
Again, other than a few localized pockets, old
growth forest within Idaho's Selkirks have been
long since gone.
Also evident with the adjoining areas of Canada,
large scale logging has been extensive and road
systems and trails are prevalent. These
adjoining areas pose a much larger issue
regarding the "loss of contiguous old growth
forests," and embody the large-scale
fragmentation of caribou habitat, which is
effectively out of any U.S. ESA regulation or
influence.
The USFWS states, "... road building and
recreation trails can also fragment the caribou
habitat."
Buried in the plan is the proposal that
roads and trails will be demolished and
re-contoured. Funding for this project would
rest squarely on the shoulders of the tax payer,
but all funding aspects are exempted from any
ESA consideration.
Presently, the remaining herd of Selkirk
Mountain Caribou resides in the Selkirk Mountain
Range of British Columbia.
Not to be overlooked, there is currently a major
east-west highway in British Columbia just north
of the international boun dary that traverses
through the north- and south-tending Selkirk
Range.
How can the USFWS propose the demolitioni of
forest road and trails on the Idaho side of the
border while such a large scale
trans-continental thoroughfare dissects directly
through the proposed range habitat?
The existing caribou herd resides north of this
Canadian highway. If road demolition needs to be
done to recover the species in the United States
Selkirks, it must start with Highway 3 in
Canada.
After all, Highway 3 is the largest and most
impending threat to the fragmentation of the
caribou habitat.
Simply put, this proposal has been initiated
because the Selkirk Mountain Range of Idaho is
downhill from the present caribou herd and
several preservationist organizations are
attempting to take advantage of the holes in the
Endangered Species Act.
The Selkirk Mountain Range of Idaho cannot,
under any terms, meet the definition of critical
habitat.
Fire impacts combined with over 100 years of
multiple use management cannot be demolished, no
matter how much funding is required from any
source.
Truly, this is nothing more than another
environmentalist movement land grab supported by
like-minded biologists facilitating and pursuing
their personal agendas.
Moreover, this plan identifies another used to
perpetuate the ongoing assault on our
comminity's economic "life's blood," the forest
products industry. It's a tactic supported by
the preservationist ideology shared by the
current leadership of our U.S. Department of
Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service.
I request that the USFWS and USFS schedule
numerous public meetings within all of the
communities of the affected area and outline the
policy's intentions to all area media.
Clearly, if this proposal requests the "best
science available," as it purports, the science
community should be embarassed by the lack of
detail, evidence, impartiality and validity.
There are so many flaws in this proposal, it
cannot be declared as factual science but rather
merely theoretical or hypothetical rhetoric.
This proposal and process does, however, make
evident one clear fact.
It displays clearly the need for a complete
re-draft of the Endangered Species Act. |
LeAlan Pinkerton
Bonners Ferry
Lester Pinkerton
Custer, South Dakota
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