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I really don't know if I'm off the topic of the article but the forests currently in Vermont have an extensive amount of dead wood in them. Years ago there was always a regular maintaining of the forests, dragging out the dead wood and getting rid of the dead trees. I haven't seen this happen in years and I really am concerned about Vermont's forests being so unmaintained and at risk for forest fires with all of the dead wood. Now I don't know what if anything at all the dead wood can be used for, maybe heating, maybe as mulch, but I really think that there should be constant maintaining of the forests. Years ago when I was a child I would routinely see work crews dragging out all the dead wood and now I never do. Just a thought.
-- Posted by How do I heart thee on Tue, Mar 10, 2009, 2:27 pm EST

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Readers need to grasp that "Roadless" is a highly technical term, and not what a normal person would mean by it. The Sandwich area south of the Kancamaugus Highway was logged over a 15 year period using a railway, the bed of which is still present. As a young person, I visited the sites of logging camps with bunkhouses, cook sheds, dining rooms, black smith shops, saw filing shops, and engine houses. The Stark district was logged during World War II by German POW's. In point of fact, in Vermont's Green Mt. Forest a few decades ago, after Congress designated a "roadless Wilderness" in Danby, the management plan directed the USFS to remove all bridges and culverts from a "transportation corridor" located within the Wilderness. The Center for Biological Diversity is continuing a game of semantics in which the real losers are ordinary people trying to earn their living from the land in the Northern Forest.
-- Posted by Bruce P. Shields on Mon, Mar 9, 2009, 10:01 pm EST

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Readers need to grasp that "roadless" is a highly technical term. The Sandwich area of the East Branch Woods was formerly served by a logging railroad, and in my childhood it was still possible to visit in the remains of old logging camps originally built to hold up to 60 men with cooksheds, dining rooms, recreation room, filing sheds, locomotive sheds and so on. The Stark area was part of a sector logged during World War II by hundreds of German Prisoners of War. When Wilderness on the Green Mountain National Forest was being debated some 30 years ago, the management plan mandated removal of bridges and culverts from the corridors which Congress had declared were not roads. Center for Biological Diversity is playing a game of semantics which ordinary people living in the Northern Forest can only lose.
-- Posted by Bruce P. Shields on Mon, Mar 9, 2009, 9:55 pm EST

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The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has stated in online reports that the Lynx is endangered in part due to logging. If you look at studies on the habitat needs of Lynx, they all state that the Lynx prey primarily on snowshoe hare, which need early succession forest habitat. Lynx thrive in areas that are clear cut, or have experienced wild fires or catastrophic wind events. Timber harvesting is important to the success of snowshoe hare and therefore Lynx and other predators thrive in these areas. When Lynx were introduced into wilderness areas in Colorado at and expense of $1.5 million, a large percentage starved the first year due to the lack of the food. Below are studies by the USFWS concerning the habitat needs of Lynx. Simply put, logging helps Lynx thrive. This articles is nothing more than creative media from the Center for Biological Diversity. While CBD continues contemplating the so called mounting evidence on climate change and it's effect oin wildlife, lets applaud the work of our forest and wildlife management teams in getting the job done to keep our forests and wildlife healthy and thriving.

US Fish and Wildlife Service studies
Lynx prey primarily on snowshoe hare throughout their range. Snowshoe hare habitat is dense cover of coniferous and mixed forests with abundant understory cover. Coniferous swamps and second-growth areas that are adjacent to mature forests, and alder fens and conifer bogs, are used. In Maine, dense cover usually results from regeneration after crown-replacing fires or wind in natural systems, and following certain timber harvest practices such as clearcut logging. Early-successional forest stages have greater understory structure than do mature forests, and therefore support higher snowshoe hare populations. However, mature forests can also provide habitat as openings develop in the canopy of mature forests when trees succumb to fire, wind, ice, insects and the understory grows.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/white_mountain/projects/forest_plan_revision/viability/animals/canada_lynx.pdf


NORTHEAST
Timber harvest and associated activities on non-Federal lands exert the most influence on lynx habitat in the Northeast and have created the favorable conditions that currently exist for lynx and snowshoe hares (Homyack 2003) in northern Maine. As a result of the Standards (Maine Department of Conservation 1999) that implement the Maine Forest Practices Act, as amended
(Maine Department of Conservation 2004) harvest management in Maine has shifted away from clearcutting and now favors partial cutting, which, in some situations, may result in less favorable conditions for snowshoe hare and lynx.

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/lynx/final%20lynx%20recoveryoutline9-05.pdf

Frank Stanley
Vermont Traditions Coalition
Bolton, VT
-- Posted by Frank Stanley on Mon, Mar 9, 2009, 3:18 pm EST

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Come on Tom,
This article belongs on the Opinion page or at least classify it as a press release.
These projects have been in the planning stages for years and were part of the approved and not litigated forest plan. The area in question is not really Roadless and above that a timber harvest actually increases the almost non-existant early successional habit in the Whites, there not being any vertabrates thatneed old growth to survive. Further, it provides much needed jobs utilizing a renewable resource. The litigators, environmental luddites that they are, are the ones that are out of touch and frankly should do their part to curb greenhouse gasses, shut up.
-- Posted by Ron Vars on Mon, Mar 9, 2009, 1:10 pm EST

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The article requested can not be found! Please refresh your browser or go back. (BT,20090309,NEWS02,903090328,AR). The article requested can not be found! Please refresh your browser or go back. (BT,20090309,NEWS02,903090328,AR).