Wild Nature Institute
  • Science
    • Giraffe
    • TUNGO
    • Spotted Owl
  • Education
    • Environmental Education
    • Snag Forest
    • Forest Fire Truths
  • Action
    • Save The Giraffe
    • Corridor Campaign
    • Snag Forest
    • Forests For Everyone
  • Donate
    • Ways To Give
    • Purchase NFT
    • Adopt A Baby Giraffe
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • Monica
    • Derek
    • James
    • Veila
    • Our International Team
    • Our Tanzanian Partners
Updates From the Field and News From Wild Nature

New study shows logging, not fire, is degrading our national forests

8/18/2016

0 Comments

 
These large-diameter old-growth trees marked for logging in a US Forest Service fuels reduction project are typical of what is often described as 'thinning'. Logging like this, done under the pretense of fire risk reduction, is the reason Spotted Owl populations are crashing in National Forests, scientists say. Credit: Wild Nature InstituteThese large-diameter old-growth trees marked for logging in a US Forest Service fuels reduction project are typical of what is often described as 'thinning'. Logging like this, done under the pretense of fire risk reduction, is the reason Spotted Owl populations are crashing in National Forests, scientists say. Credit: Wild Nature Institute
Monica Bond has spent the past 15 years studying spotted owls and forest fire. This week, Bond published an article summarizing existing science about what happens to spotted owls when forests burn, in the hope of averting a major US forest management policy disaster.
US Forest Service (USFS) manages 11 million acres of public forest land in California's Sierra Nevada. The USFS has a new California spotted owl conservation strategy and is revising its forest management plans for Sierra Nevada national forests. These documents will guide how national forests are managed for the coming decades, and they are deeply misinformed about fire.

The status of spotted owls tells the USFS how its management activities affect old-growth species. Since 1993 when the USFS began managing for California spotted owl habitat, populations of spotted owls have crashed on USFS lands. In contrast, spotted owl populations are stable in National Parks Service (NPS) lands. Both USFS and NPS lands have wildfires, but NPS lands are not logged. Logging on 1.2 million acres of USFS land in the Sierra Nevada between 1994 and 2014 is driving spotted owl declines.
In Bond's summary paper[1], published by Elsevier Press as a Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, she presents a data-driven narrative describing how forest fires, including big, severe megafires, have no strong negative effects on spotted owl populations. For example, in the largest and most comprehensive Sierra Nevada study to date[2], burned and unburned owl territories had the same probability of being occupied—even when about a third of the territories' area burned at high severity. "The lack of effect was remarkable because we found it repeatedly," said Bond. "We kept investigating different aspects and the story didn't change. Owls were harmed by logging, not by fire."
These results make perfect sense in light of the history of the Sierra Nevada. Forest fire in the Sierra is typically mixed severity, meaning it includes some large patches of high severity fire, and is as natural and necessary to forest health as rain or sunshine. "The increased abundance and diversity of plants and animals in high severity burns tells us the Sierra Nevada's flora and fauna evolved with regular high severity fires." said Dr. Richard Hutto of University of Montana's College of Forestry and Conservation.
However, Bond's results are troubling to the USFS and scientists on the USFS payroll. The new California spotted owl conservation strategy was written entirely without consulting Bond. A forest oversight organization asked the USFS to include her, but those requests were ignored. The USFS gets billions of dollars each year to fight fires, and millions more to administer sales of public lands trees to timber companies under the pretence of reducing fire risk.
The three studies that examined spotted owl responses to logging all showed negative impacts from fuels reduction thinning. Thirteen scientific papers found no strong negative effects of high-severity fire on owl populations. Yet the USFS plans promote logging under the pretence that logging will save the owls from fire.
Bond concluded, "There is a US forest policy train, about to leave the California station, which aims to promote widespread logging on public forests. The logging will be expensive, ineffective at stopping wildfire, and ecologically damaging, and it will be paid for by the taxpaying citizens of the USA. We must change the track."

More information: [1] Bond ML (2016) The Heat Is On: Spotted Owls and Wildfire. Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.10014-4

[2] 11 years of occupancy data from 41 burned breeding sites before and after 6 large fires, were compared with 145 long-unburned control sites during the same period (Lee et al. 2012).


Read at: http://phys.org/news/2016-08-degrading-national-forests.html#jCp

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Science News and Updates From the Field from Wild Nature Institute.

    Follow @WildNatureInst

    RSS Feed


    If You Love Us,
    Make A Donation!

    All Photos on This Blog are Available as Frame-worthy Prints to Thank Our Generous Donors.
    Email Us for Details of this Offer.

    Archives

    January 2023
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    January 2011

Home
About Us
Monica Bond
Derek Lee
James Madeli
Our Tanzanian Partners
Our International Team
Juma The Giraffe
Celebrating Africa's Giants

Science
   Giraffe
   TUNGO
   Spotted Owl
Education
   Environmental Education
   Snag Forest
   Forest Fire Truths

   Sinema Leo Video Children's Books
Action
   Save The Giraffe
   Corridor Campaign
   Snag Forests
   Forests For Everyone
Donate
   Ways To Give
   Purchase NFT
   Adopt A Baby Giraffe


Wild Nature Institute Logo
Mailing Address:
Wild Nature Institute
PO Box 44
Weaverville, NC 28787

Phone: +1 415 763 0348
Email: info@wildnatureinstitute.org

The Wild Nature Institute is a New Hampshire non-profit corporation and a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.
© Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved.
View Wild Nature Institute's Privacy Policy
  • Science
    • Giraffe
    • TUNGO
    • Spotted Owl
  • Education
    • Environmental Education
    • Snag Forest
    • Forest Fire Truths
  • Action
    • Save The Giraffe
    • Corridor Campaign
    • Snag Forest
    • Forests For Everyone
  • Donate
    • Ways To Give
    • Purchase NFT
    • Adopt A Baby Giraffe
  • Blog
  • About Us
    • Monica
    • Derek
    • James
    • Veila
    • Our International Team
    • Our Tanzanian Partners