Roadless Rule Public Comment

[Sundance]

Roads let wolves cover alot of ground

This is true until they find a trapper's set!
Now Washington is another story, I doubt there will ever be any wolf management in WA, but in other states wolves are being managed, and in units with access wolf hunting and trapping, also hound hunting and bear baiting is helping game herds. Access is a necessity for this predator management.

Bearpaw- if you believe that Washington will never have meaningful predator management (especially with wolves), do you still feel that punching in more roads would be a greater benefit to the wildlife then leaving it status quo?

[jackelope]

Every wildfire seems to get stopped at a road.

True.
It’s just a different road from the road where they started at.

There is some truth to that and yet some fallacy. It depends geographically how fires are more frequently started. If you are talking about areas with human population then your statement is more accurate. When talking about wilderness areas and large forested areas its very often lightning that causes more fires and those fires often turn into huge unstoppable fires that burn until milder weather in the fall stop them.

Rescinding the roadless rule has no impact on the man caused fires in human populated areas, but it could have a very positive impact on fires caused by lightning in current roadless areas if there were to become some access into those roadless areas and if logging operations were ramped up significantly to manage those forests.

My thought process is very basic.   Something like 85% of wildfires are human caused. If there are more roads, there are more humans. Where there are more humans, there will be more human caused wildfires.

Source:
 https://www.nps.gov/articles/wildfire-causes-and-evaluation.htm#:~:text=Humans%20and%20Wildfire,Nature%20and%20Wildfire

[baldopepper]

Makes me wonder how our world wide forests managed to flourish for thousands of years before humans decided they could manage them better than mother nature.

[Mtnwalker]

It would be interesting to know the breakdown on an acreage basis between human caused and natural. Looking at the current map I believe nearly all of the large fires around us right now are lightning fires. Sugarloaf, Labor Mtn, Wildcat/Bumping, Pomas, Crown Creek, Rattlesnake, Lynx Mountain, Tacoma Creek, Perry. The only man-made fire currently burning over 1000 acres that I can find is Bear Gulch near Lake Cushman. I do know there have been some giant human-caused ones in the past like the Cub Cr/Winthrop fire

[cjjcb]

I thought this was a good listen that dove deeper into the fire aspect of the Roadless Rule.

https://www.themeateater.com/listen/cals-week-in-review/ep-415-roadless-today-jobless-tomorrow-with-chris-wood-of-trout-unlimited

[bearpaw]

Roads let wolves cover alot of ground

This is true until they find a trapper's set!
Now Washington is another story, I doubt there will ever be any wolf management in WA, but in other states wolves are being managed, and in units with access wolf hunting and trapping, also hound hunting and bear baiting is helping game herds. Access is a necessity for this predator management.

Bearpaw- if you believe that Washington will never have meaningful predator management (especially with wolves), do you still feel that punching in more roads would be a greater benefit to the wildlife then leaving it status quo?

Absolutely, for all the other reasons I mentioned in my replies. Just to be clear, this is federal, the removal of the rule will help us with predator management in the other states.

WA also has a lion problem and they will likely never allow meaningful management there either. At least as long as democrats keep getting elected as governor. However, its actually and easy fix, elect Republicans and wildlife management will get fixed.

[cjjcb]

Friendly reminder -

Public comment period ends Friday 9/19 (tomorrow).

Link for comment - https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/29/2025-16581/special-areas-roadless-area-conservation-national-forest-system-lands

[steeleywhopper]

Thank you for the link!
Sent