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Trump Signs Executive Order Handing U.S. Public Forests Over to Private Logging Industry
https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-public-forests-private-logging.html
Published: March 5, 2025
Edited by Chris McDermott
Protesters against the Trump administration’s layoffs of federal workers at Muir Woods National Monument in Marin County, California on March 1, 2025. Santiago Mejia / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
A new executive order signed by President Donald Trump over the weekend could have a disastrous effect on endangered species, climate change and local economies, warned conservation groups.
The order encouraging the “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production” seeks to erode Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection rules in favor of the expansion of tree felling across 280 million acres of United States national forests, as well as other public lands, for timber, reported The Guardian.
“This Trump executive order is the most blatant attempt in American history by a president to hand over federal public lands to the logging industry,” said wildfire scientist Chad Hanson with the John Muir Project. “What’s worse, the executive order is built on a lie, as Trump falsely claims that more logging will curb wildfires and protect communities, while the overwhelming weight of evidence shows exactly the opposite.”
The order goes as far as setting an annual target for the amount of timber offered for sale, along with other measures, which could lead to widespread clear-cutting, a press release from Earthjustice said.
The announcement follows last week’s appointment of Tom Schultz as the new chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Schultz is a former executive of timber company Idaho Forest Group.
“Naming a corporate lobbyist to run the agency tasked with overseeing the last old growth left in the U.S. makes it clear that the Trump administration’s goal isn’t to preserve our national forests, but to sell them off to billionaires and corporate polluters,” said Anna Medema, Sierra Club’s associate director of legislative and administrative advocacy for forests and public lands, as The Guardian reported.
The action is similar to a recent move by Trump that used an obscure committee to advance fossil fuel projects that put threatened species at risk. According to experts, this disregard for ESA rules is likely illegal.
The order says it is “vital” to reverse what it calls “heavy-handed federal policies” and “increase domestic timber production to protect our national and economic security.”
“This executive order sets in motion a chainsaw free-for-all on our federal forests. Americans treasure our forests for all the benefits they provide, such as recreation, clean air, and clean drinking water. But this order ignores these values and opens the door for wild lands to be plundered, for nothing more than corporate gain. In the long run, this will worsen the effects of climate change, while also destroying critical wildlife habitat,” said Blaine Miller-McFeeley, senior legislative representative of the Earthjustice policy and legislation team, in the press release.
Trump’s latest executive order specifies that logging projects can be expedited if they are purportedly intended to reduce wildfire risk by “thinning” vegetation, reported The Guardian. However, the razing of forests, especially those with established, fire-resistant trees, has been said by scientists to actually increase the risk of fast-moving wildfires.
Hanson explained that logging creates drier and hotter conditions that alter a forest’s microclimate, helping wildfires to spread faster.
“People deserve smart, science-driven solutions that truly protect their forests and communities, but don’t let it fool you – President Trump’s forest executive order isn’t the solution. It’s a short-sighted giveaway for extractive industries,” said Josh Hicks, director of conservation campaigns for The Wilderness Society.
The ESA laws that Trump is attempting to circumvent protect roughly 400 species that live in national forests, including threatened and near-threatened species such as grizzly bears, wild salmon and spotted owls.
Environmental groups warned that increased logging could also pollute millions of people’s water supply.
“Trump’s order will unleash the chainsaws and bulldozers on our federal forests. Clearcutting these beautiful places will increase fire risk, drive species to extinction, pollute our rivers and streams, and destroy world-class recreation sites,” said Randi Spivak, the Center for Biological Diversity’s public lands policy director. “This is a particularly horrific move by Trump to loot our public lands by handing the keys to big business.”
New bill would shorten coyote hunting season in Maine
A Colorado bill aimed at redefining state wildlife management just failed, but it sparked lively debate among hunters, conservationists
Yellowstone National Park Traps Wild Buffalo Again!: Over 200 Held at Stephens Creek in Montana
Mar 07, 20250
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(Photo/Courtesy of BFC)
Yellowstone National Park’s Senior Bison Biologist, Chris Geremia, informed Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) Campaign Coordinator, Mike Mease, that Yellowstone has trapped a group of 200–210 buffalo at Stephens Creek near Gardiner, Montana. The buffalo began their annual migration into the Gardiner Basin last week, and the park started capturing groups of approximately 60 on Tuesday, March 4th, continuing through the morning of March 6th (58). These are the first buffalo to migrate into the basin this season.
This practice goes back years. Last year, BFC Board Member James Holt commented: “Luring and trapping Buffalo inside Yellowstone Park is a decades-long practice that continues because of Montana’s stance to not permit a self-sustaining wild Buffalo population in the state. Wild Buffalo herds should be thriving on millions of acres of National public trust lands but for the capitulation of the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service to Montana’s plan of managing wild buffalo for extinction.”
BFC Board Vice President and Tribal Sovereignty & Indigenous Lifeways Program Director, Dallas Gudgell (Yankton Dakota) states that BFC is looking for solutions as the current and decades old Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) continues to fail the Buffalo, tribal people, and community members.
Idaho wolf population expected to drop again
Published 10:27 am Thursday, March 6, 2025
By Brad Carlson A wolf in Northern Idaho. (Idaho Department of Fish and Game) Idaho’s wolf population likely is down by about one-third since 2021, according to state Department of Fish and Game officials. Aug. 1 estimates included about 1,550 wolves from 2019 to 2021 followed by just over 1,300 in 2022 and 1,150 in 2023. The 2024 estimate, to be presented to the Fish and Game Commission in July, is expected to be down slightly based on harvest in the preceding year, to around 1,000, “if we follow the trend line we were on,” said Shane Roberts, Fish and Game wildlife bureau chief. The wolf population estimate for Aug. 1, 2024, will be a “new anchor point” for future projections that reflect impacts of a federal injunction that impacted wolf harvest during the 2024-25 hunting and trapping season, he said. Federal Magistrate Judge Candy W. Dale in spring 2024 prohibited Idaho recreational wolf trapping and snaring in grizzly bear habitat in 19 counties during the bears’ non-denning season, from March through November. She upheld the decision Feb. 4 after Idaho asked her to reconsider. Some 27% of the state’s wolf-trapping harvest from 2019 through 2023 was in the geographic area that the injunction impacts, Fish and Game director Jim Fredericks told the state Senate Resources & Environment Committee March 5. “We’re not through the first year yet of seeing what the result is,” he said. “We are down in terms of our wolf harvest, and we are seeing less harvest in those areas because we are not able to trap when a lot of the harvest historically has occurred.” Nevertheless, “we have other tools, and we do remain very committed to achieving our management objectives,” Fredericks said. The department is considering appealing the federal ruling, he said. As for Idaho’s wolf population and the department’s objectives for it, since 2019, “the trend line suggests that if we are able to maintain adequate harvest, we would be on a trajectory to meet the state’s management goal of a population fluctuating around 500 animals,” Roberts said. That population goal is set in the department’s 2023-28 wolf management plan. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in its 2009 delisting rule for the Northern Rockies said Idaho could manage an average of 500 wolves without reducing wild prey or increasing livestock depredation. The Idaho Legislature in 2021 significantly increased allowed wolf take and authorized additional kill methods. Environmental groups took legal action. Previously and since, Fish and Game has focused wolf harvest where livestock depredations are chronic or where elk populations are below management objectives.
Read more at: https://capitalpress.com/2025/03/06/idaho-wolf-population-expected-to-drop-again/
The world should prepare now for a potential H5N1 flu pandemic, experts warn
Officials: 90 dead birds removed from pond, deaths possibly caused by bird flu
Default Mono Sans Mono Serif Sans Serif Comic Fancy Small CapsDefault X-Small Small Medium Large X-Large XX-LargeDefault Outline Dark Outline Light Outline Dark Bold Outline Light Bold Shadow Dark Shadow Light Shadow Dark Bold Shadow Light BoldDefault Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Default Black Silver Gray White Maroon Red Purple Fuchsia Green Lime Olive Yellow Navy Blue Teal Aqua OrangeDefault 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%Crews remove 90 dead birds from Little Chute pond, possible deaths caused by bird flu. (SOURCE: WBAY)
By WBAY news staff and Andrew McMunn
Published: Mar. 2, 2025 at 1:20 PM PST
LITTLE CHUTE, Wis. (WBAY/Gray News) – At least 90 dead ducks were removed from a pond in Wisconsin, and officials are investigating if their deaths were caused by bird flu.
Kent Taylor, the public works director for the Village of Little Chute, said crews removed 90 dead mallards from a storm pond Wednesday.
“Several of our employees were viewing Facebook or social media, and they had seen that there were several reports that there were some dead ducks in our Buchanan storm pond,” Taylor said.
Officials contacted the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for help in removing the dead birds from the pond in Little Chute.
“We took their advice and they said we could clean up the ducks out of the pond, so our guys went in the pond with their waders on, and pulled all the ducks out,” Taylor said.
Taylor also said there is no danger to the public at this time. However, residents are wanting to know exactly what caused that number of birds to die.
“Is it pollution? Is it bird flu? I’d like to know what it is?” Ken Affeldt of Little Chute asked.
The DNR took samples from six of the dead mallards from the storm pond.
They said the results of of the tests may not been seen for a couple of weeks.
“Their biologists came out and explained to us that it looked very similar to what they had seen elsewhere in the county, particularly over in Kaukauna (Wisconsin) most recently, and they said it looked like it would be associated with the avian bird flu,” Taylor said.
Despite the unsettling scenes, Taylor said the village will continue to monitor the storm pond and take additional measures if dead birds keep turning up.
“That pond has harbored as many as a 1,000 to 2,000 waterfowl, most recently because it is open, there’s a warm water outlet into that pond. It’s a spot we take care of on a regular basis,” Taylor said.
After the ducks were removed from the pond, the DNR placed their carcasses in bags and brought them to the Outagamie County Landfill to be disposed of.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 12,215 cases of avian flu have been found in wild birds in the country.
The vast majority of avian flu cases have been found in poultry, with at least166 million birds affected.
