Skip to content

Logging needs to slow down

South Cariboo Trappers Association president appreciated guest editorial

To the editor:

Wow, it’s nice to read a guest shot from a forester with a PHD and 38 years experience (Bill Bourgeois, June 13, Free Press), which backs up what local trappers have been saying for the last five years.

We are not only facing a timber-supply crisis, but also an animal-population crisis, which few people know anything about.

As reported in previous weeks, moose and deer are declining in the Cariboo and most dramatically in heavily logged pine-beetle areas.

As Bourgeois points out, "we need a commitment by government" for "inventory of what we have in our forests."

Local trappers can tell you how dramatically our old growth dependent species, like marten and fisher, have declined and how the huge beetle salvage cut blocks are wildlife deserts.  But we need scientific inventories to back up our claims and make sure the forest companies listen to our demands for critical habitat protection.

Ranchers will tell you about the rapid spring run off, followed by the disappearance of creeks, which used to flow year round.

Beavers and muskrats have declined because the low summer water levels promote the tularemia outbreaks, which wipe out our most important "water conservers.” (Tularemia is an infection common in wild rodents that is passed to humans through contact with infected animal tissues or by ticks, biting flies, and mosquitoes.)

Resort and lakeshore property owners are adding their support to our claims, as they, too, see the affects of this rapid snowmelt.

Logging does not have to stop, but it surely has to slow down, with a return to smaller, carefully planned cut blocks, which can slow snowmelt, retain more water and benefit our forest animals.

 

Paul Blackwell, president

South Cariboo Trappers Association