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An open letter to the president
The Honorable President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
The Ruffed Grouse Society is a national non-profit wildlife conservation organization dedicated to promoting active forest management as an important component of forest stewardship. Your Administration's Healthy Forests Initiative outlines needed modifications to the policies and procedures that guide federal lands. The Society strongly supports your efforts to return cornmon sense to federal land management and to protect these lands and our nation's rural communities.
It is essential to increase the use of active forest management to reduce hazardous fuel loads and therefore, the risk of catastrophic fires in the western United States. Likewise, it is essential to increase the use of active forest management to sustain young forest habitats and the wildlife that require these habitats in the eastern United States. Wildlife such as the ruffed grouse and the American woodcock, two game species of considerable interest to 600,000-plus sportsmen and women each year, and the golden-winged warbler, which is one of the most seriously imperiled nongame birds in the eastern United States. Populations of these and many other wildlife species that thrive in young forests are declining as these habitats become increasingly rare on many forest landscapef
A return to a balanced approach to forest stewardship, an approach that includes the thoughtful implementation of active forest management, is essential to sustain our nation's forest resources. The Society urges your Administration to continue to promote policies that strike this balance.
Dan Dessecker
Senior Wildlife Biologist
Hayward, Wis.
Lesson of the firestorms
by Dan Dessecker
RGS senior wildlife biologist
Increasingly, the long hot days of summer bring something other than eastern tourists to the mountains of the western United States, something far less welcome-fire. Again this year, Wildfires have been raging throughout vast areas of the inland West, scorching forests, grasslands and. unfortunately, more than a few homes.
The fires of the past few summers did not come as a surprise to natural resource professionals and local residents aware of the telltale signs. Decades of man's well-intentioned yet misguided efforts to suppress wildfires have left many western forestlands with unnatural amounts of dead and dying vegetation just waiting for a single spark from a lightning strike or careless match. Had wildfires of 20-30 years ago been allowed to perform their natural role in "cleansing' our forests, recent fires would have likely been starved of fuel before reaching cataclysmic proportions. Adding to these unnaturally dense forests have been consecutive years of drought. It was only a matter of time.
Because much of the area scorched by fire is public land, there is no shortage of political hand-wringing and fingerpointing. Some suggest that these fires are a direct result of recent attempts by environmental extremists to halt forest management on public lands, even if fuel reduction is one of the goals thereof. Others suggest that fires are entirely natural events, and we must simply live with them. Both perspectives are to some degree valid.
Fires are indeed natural events that have occurred for millennia, but man's intervention in past fires has, in part, created the monster with which we must now contend. Likewise, legal challenges by groups that seek to halt all management of public lands have also helped tie the hands of resource professionals who could well see the potential ramifications of inaction.
Unnaturally destructive fires such as those in the West are not as severe a threat to the forests of the eastern United States. Inaction, however, can lead to unnaturally mature forests that don't meet the needs of ruffed grouse, mourning warblers and the many other types of wildlife that require youngforest habitats. Healthy forests and diverse wildlife don't just happen on today's forested landscapes. They require some attention.
Although it is unlikely that we will ever offset the human suffering evident as people literally watch their homes go up in smoke, perhaps we can at least salvage some good from these firestorms. Perhaps the events of recent summers will help to dispel the myth that we can apply a hands-off approach to forest conservation and simply allow "nature" to take its course. This is, of course, not possible; man has influenced the "natural" state of the North American continent since the first Asians traversed the land bridge connecting the two continents and aided in the extinction of the continent's own megafauna, including the mammoth and the mastodon.
Those that support a middle-of-theroad approach, such as the Ruffed Grouse Society and others within the wildlife conservation community, have long demonstrated a willingness to accommodate a wide variety of interests, even those in direct conflict with our own. Perhaps those who seem unwilling to recognize perspectives that differ from their own and who challenge forest management on our public lands at virtually every turn will now be willing to accept something less than the entire pie.
After all, public lands are just that-public.
Dan Dessecker
Senior Wildlife Biologist
Hayward, Wis.
www.twincitiesrgs.org