The Myth Of Lynxgate Debunked - Along With "Salvage" Timber Sale

[hatrack]

Remember "Lynxgate?"

"Wildlife biologists in Washington planting clumps of fur from endangered lynx in a national forest, sending it in for lab testing, getting caught trying to shut down access to a national forest by triggering the dreaded Endangered Species Act? Remember? About two years ago, it was everywhere. The media went off like an air-raid siren: Grave op-eds ran from coast to coast ("The great bio-fraud" --Washington Times), and conservative talk radio hosts had to use every adjective on the shelf for the vast left-wing conspiracy, then go back and order some more from overtaxed right-wing think tanks. Inspectors general and Congressional hearings ensued, with calls to reevaluate prior studies of grizzly bears and spotted owls.

There was only one problem with the story: It wasn't true. Researchers had not planted lynx hair in a forest (and even if they had, you can't shut down a National Forest based on a single piece of evidence of the presence of an endangered species). Biologists in the national lynx study had been getting suspect results back from the lab, so some of them sent in control samples of hair from a captive lynx and a stuffed bobcat to test the lab, and told their supervisors they were doing so. But there was no provision for control samples in the protocol for the study, so the Forest Service told them to stop. That was that until almost a year later, in late 2001, when the Rev. Moon's Washington Times broke the "story," decked out as the hoax of the century, and the Associated Press picked it up.

EDIT

From that reference point, consider the latest story involving big trees and an endangered species. It broke last week: The Forest Service had green-lighted the logging of seven spotted owl habitat sites in the Sierra Nevada -- all old-growth forest, the Beluga caviar of the timber industry -- because they had been destroyed by fire. The sites could no longer support the owls, so it was time for "salvage logging" of the big trees, whose removal would otherwise be illegal. But the John Muir Project took AP reporters on tours of the sites and showed they were "mostly green forests," the opposite of destroyed. Fire damage was minor. The spotted owls were present and accounted for. Oops.

About all the Forest Service could say was there was no "intentional attempt to mislead," and "things change on the ground." Maybe. Maybe not. But maybe the explanation of an innocent mistake isn't the first place you go, nor should it be the end of the story, when it's coming from an administration that has made "fires kill forests" into a mantra for logging big trees ("thinning"), and the cover story for its ongoing gifts to the timber industry. Maybe the fact that the Bush administration issued a rule last January tripling allowable logging in the Sierra Nevada and striking down existing protections for the spotted owl and old-growth forests should be weighed in context by investigation-minded reporters. Maybe an administration that's determined to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, sell off the Tongass and dynamite the Everglades for open-pit limestone quarries shouldn't get a free pass when one of its agencies uses bad data to decide that big-ticket old growth trees are defunct and have to be logged. Somebody went out and checked? Oh, well.

EDIT

The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, the Weekly Standard and 20/20's John Stossel, who were all over Lynxgate, apparently can't think of a thing to say this time around."

EDIT/END

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0809-13.htm

[nosmokes]

1. re: "salvage" logging

like they're attempting here in oregon in some roadless and old growth tracts after the biscuit fire a couple of years ago, they have all sorts of tricks. one is that the scope of the fire was so huge that they surveyed the area from the air, and wrote off huge swaths as burned and open to *salvage*. problem is, it's a totally different story on the forest floor. but with budget cutbacks the forest service claims they don't have the personnel to tag salvagable trees. they were actually going to allow the timber companies to do this until a judge stopped them.

and if you've never seen big timbers version of a salvage operation it's virtually identical to a clear cut.

[mike_c]

2. my environmental politics have become much more radical...

...since coming into close contact with industrial forestry in the west. Too few easterners have any experience with the majesty of old-growth forests or the tragedy of industrial scale logging. It's bad enough on private lands, but it's criminal on public lands.

[phantom power]

3. I recall...

that there used to be some sort of charity organization that would take legislators around of free airplane flights to view the actual damage caused by logging.