Enviros, beetle larvae and black backed woodpeckers could stop harvest on burned out area

Wood boring beetle larvae could trump human beings. That’s the possible end game of a controversy raging over what to do with a portion of the 400 plus square miles of forest burned by last year’s Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park. The U.S. Forest Service wants to harvest burned trees from 29,648 acres or roughly 30 square miles within the Stanislaus National Forest. That’s about 11 percent of the 300,000 plus acres that were charred in the third largest fire in California history. If harvested in a timely manner before the wood deteriorates further, the charred trees would yield an estimated one billion board feet of useable lumber. That is enough lumber to frame 625,000 new homes averaging 2,400 square feet in size. The Forest Service would use part of the proceeds to fund a massive replanting effort. The move is being opposed by some environmentalists. Chad Hanson —  a forest and fire ecologist with the John Muir Project — believes logging and replanting are the absolute worst things that could be done on forestland scarred by the fire. The main reason is that it disrupts the natural post fire ecological system that helps wood boring beetle larvae thrive in greater numbers. Those beetle larvae in turn help support the black backed woodpeckers.  It takes 200 to 300 acres of burned out forest to support a pair of black backed woodpeckers. That means the area in question could ultimately provide meals for 600 woodpeckers. The entire 47 square miles would provide a buffet for 6,000 woodpeckers. The basic question is what is more important: Homes for 1,562,500 people (based on 2.5 people per home) or 600 woodpeckers? Remember there would still be enough post fire habitat to support upwards of 5,400 black backed woodpeckers. Foes of the Forest Service’s harvesting plan intend to use the federal environmental review process to slow down the effort. In doing so, they would effectively make harvesting the burned wood a mute point as any significant delay would deteriorate the salvage quality of potential lumber. That’s why Congress Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, has introduced legislation to suspend the environmental review for the Forest Service plan...more 

If they are tough enough to eat the larvae of these ugly critters they don't need protection from man or beast.