Forestry News & Views: Aspen decline in West - International Falls Daily Journal
By Kern Ridlington
According to wildlife experts in Wyoming, aspen stands provide habitat for more than 200 species of wildlife.
They are troubled as Wyoming has lost more than 60 percent of its historic aspen acreage. Aspen needs harvesting or fires to remove older trees and reproduce.
In Minnesota, maintaining aspen has not been a problem as harvesting has enabled aspen to reproduce.
On the Chippewa and Superior national forests, reduced harvesting of aspen seems to be the goal to reduce the amount of aspen acreage and is also the goal of the Sierra Club.
In 2001 the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club filed suit against the Forest Service demanding a halt to logging in the lake states as it encourages the growth of aspen by clear cutting.
In Arizona, there is also concern that aspen is not reproducing and elk are over browsing the few aspen sprouts that do occur.
Charges dropped
In 2000, I wrote about the Thirty Mile Fire on the Okanogan National Forest in the state of Washington where three young college firefighters and one veteran firefighter, a father of a 7- year old daughter and 4- year old son were killed.
Gwinnett Net Daily2009 "PigBook" of Wasteful Congressional Government Spending While 47 states have figured out that wool can be best used to make a warm sweater, Montana, Texas, and Wyoming apparently are still trying to work out its practical utilizations. $173000 by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine),