LARAMIE - A conservation group has filed a petition asking the Medicine Bow National Forest to stop logging until the agency has a better scientific understanding of the effects the pine beetle epidemic, combined with continued clear-cutting, will have on species including goshawks and lynx.

A U.S. Forest Service representative said this week the staff was studying the petition from Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and would respond in the near future.

Biodiversity contends that the road-building and other impacts associated with large logging projects exacerbate the negative effects on the forest from the beetle epidemic, damaging watersheds and habitat.

In an interview, Biodiversity program director Duane Short said large logging projects in the backcountry - such as the impending Spruce Gulch fuels reduction project west of Fox Park - entail large clear-cuts and �will do nothing to stem the beetle epidemic or protect homes from wildfires.�

The Medicine Bow should also not allow any timbering in spruce-fir stands which may survive the pine beetle epidemic, he said.

�It would be irresponsible to charge ahead with major logging projects that could wipe out the remaining tracts of surviving forest while the beetle outbreak runs its course,� Biodiversity said in a press release. Short said studies have shown that logging the dead trees will not prevent enough fires to justify the ecological damage involved.

A timber industry spokesman, on the other hand, said logging of the beetle-killed trees should be accelerated. Tom Troxel, a director of the Intermountain Forest Association in Rapid City, S.D., said the Medicine Bow is facing a crisis and as many of the dead trees should be removed as possible during the five years they are still marketable. That would limit the chance of large-scale fires and begin the process of regeneration.

�We don�t have time to waste with any more studies and litigation,� he said.

Forest Supervisor Mary Peterson indicated that nothing can be done to avoid the loss of almost all of the old-growth lodgepole pine stands on the Medicine Bow. The beetles prefer large, older lodgepoles, she said, �so they are almost 100 percent killed.�

Peterson said the agency�s current timber sales are mostly focused on lodgepole forests affected by the epidemic. Because most dead lodgepoles will blow over within five to 15 years, the agency is particularly concentrating on removing hazardous trees at developed recreation areas, along roads and trails and near buildings and houses on private property, she said.

Peterson said dead lodgepoles begin to crack and become unusable for lumber purposes after about five years, and this factor could limit the duration of the timber industry�s interest in harvesting the trees. She said wood pellet manufacturing enterprises, which could use dead trees for a longer period, have been established in Walden and Kremmling, Colo., and in Laramie. Other firms are interested in converting the cellulose in the trees to fuel, she said.

Troxel said most of the timber currently cut on the Medicine Bow and adjoining Routt National Forest is trucked to Montrose, Colo. But he said the sawmill in Saratoga, which has been closed for several years, �could potentially reopen if they knew they had a consistent supply of timber to keep it running. We really ought to be trying to capture the economic value of these trees.�

Troxel said the beetle kill has become catastrophic primarily because the forests in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming are composed of century-old, even-aged lodgepoles very susceptible to the infestation. He acknowledged that a part of the reason for this condition is that the Forest Service has been aggressively fighting forest fires for a century.

Troxel said climate warming which has allowed greater survival of beetles over the winter has also contributed.

* Last we knew: A pine beetle epidemic threatens to kill all lodgepole pines in the Medicine Bow National Forest.

* The latest: A conservation group has filed a petition asking the Medicine Bow National Forest to stop logging until the agency has a better understanding of the effects the pine beetle epidemic and clear-cutting on animals.

* What's next: A U.S. Forest Service representative said the agency would respond to the petition soon.]]->