My Turn: Protection for wolves indirect, speculative
Posted: January 16, 2015
By FRANK H. MURKOWSKI
FOR THE JUNEAU EMPIRE
The U.S. Forest Service awarded the Big Thorne timber sale to Viking Lumber of Klawock last October. The action came after more than a year-long delay, and the sale’s implementation is still being held up by an environmental lawsuit challenging the contract.
The Big Thorne stewardship timber contract awarded to Viking would allow harvesting of 97 million board feet. The irony is that the current management plan for the Tongass, as prepared by the Forest Service, calls for harvesting up to 267 million board feet. Nevertheless, this reduced figure would allow Southeast Alaska’s only remaining medium-sized sawmill to continue operations. (In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Southeast Alaska had two pulp mills and eight sawmills. Now only one medium-sized sawmill remains.)
The environmental groups’ litigation strategy is to stop the harvest of old-growth timber in roadless areas until they achieve an amendment to the 2008 amended Forest Plan that limits timber harvest to second growth in roadless areas — the so-called transition plan. The transition plan is dependent upon implementation of changes to current rules that timber not be harvested until it reaches its rotation age (90-100 years in the Tongass). Best forest practices, such as the Forest Service’s non-declining even-flow measure of sustained yield, the Tongass Timber Reform Act’s stream buffer rules, or the TLMP’s prohibition on harvesting within 1,000 feet of the beach will have to be changed to meet the transition plan. Harvesting timber from these areas is almost certain to invite further litigation from the same environmental groups.
The environmental groups’ main contention in the Big Thorne litigation is that timber harvest will threaten wolf population viability on Prince of Wales Island (Game Unit 2). The newly named “Alexander Archipelago Wolf” is allegedly a subspecies of the timber wolf, which the environmentalists want listed under the Endangered Species Act, even though science does not support listing this “subspecies.”
There is no biological support for this subspecies contention. The wolves in Southeast Alaska move from island to island following the food chain, namely the Sitka black tail deer. Evidence shows that deer move back and forth from the mainland to the islands. Their tracks have been seen crossing Dry Straits from Mitkof Island near Petersburg to the mainland near Wrangell.
The deer winter in the heavy old-growth areas close to tidewater, where they forage on kelp and seaweed. These fringes of old growth along the shore are not available for timber harvest under Forest Service regulations.
The lawsuit filed by environmentalist groups argues that the Forest Service must maintain stable populations of wildlife on its islands. They suggest that for wolves, it means stopping logging so they have enough deer to feed on. This is indirect, speculative protection for wolves.
Stopping timber harvest on the Big Thorne project area is not the most direct or certain way to protect wolf populations. Hunting and trapping — and illegal hunting — account for 87 percent of wolf mortality on Game Unit 2, where the Big Thorne Project is located. Four bucks can be taken for the season (Aug. 1 to Dec. 31). Five wolves can be taken (Aug. 1 to March 31), with a 60-wolf cap per year. As a Forest Service supervisor pointed out in a Big Thorne NEPA report: “I asked myself this question — ‘If I do not implement the Big Thorne Project, would this solve the issue of wolf mortality on Prince of Wales Island?’ —- and the answer was no.”
To try to link timber harvest with reduction in deer population and thus a decline in the wolf population is nothing more than a fabricated argument to stop logging. If environmentalists really wanted to increase wolves they would instead support the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s proposal to reduce the cap allowing hunters to take 60 wolves per year. This would directly and immediately increase both deer and wolf populations. But, there is a balance in nature — an increase in wolves will result in a decrease in deer. The wolves will then move to where there are more deer. Logging has little to do with nature’s balancing in this regard.
Most Alaskans can see through the haze of this selfish effort to halt timber harvesting in the Tongass National Forest — an industry that is renewable and sustainable that can provide an economy and jobs for its residents. Alaska must be allowed to develop its resources or become wards of the federal government, as we were before Statehood.
• Frank Murkowski is a former governor and U.S. Senator for Alaska.
http://juneauempire.com/opinion/2015-01-16/my-turn-protection-wolves-indirect-speculative
