Rare Trees Logged By Mistake

 

The Siskiyou Project says this mistake demonstrates the importance of allowing the public to monitor logging operations in national forests.

Logging inside the 350-acre Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area, created in 1966 to protect Brewer spruce and other rare plant species in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, was discovered last week by environmentalists after the timber was harvested and a forest closure intended to bar protesters was lifted. Forest Service personnel mis-marked the border of part of the timber sale next to the botanical area. The Forest Service intends to look into the blunder, which creates serious changes the ecology in that area through removal of the trees. Barbara Ullian, conservation director of the Siskiyou Project Group that discovered the damage, has counted 290 stumps inside the botanical area, including one that measured three feet in diameter that was 234 years old.