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Umm...no, logging in general does not destroy ecosystems. In general, any logger can tell you: the grouse stay right there and the deer simply wait for the trees to be topped...like ringing the dinner bell, but that is a terrible generalization.

I hope it is clear by now what Hubby does for a living. Fifteen years ago, he did a "test grid" on NYS Forestry land. The grid was an experimental checkerboard of acreage plots. For instance, some plot was clear cut; on some the stumps had to be a certain height with "ramp access" made from the tree originally cut, no matter what grade the tree was, so the male ruffed grouse to mount, make his mating dance and make little grouse; some plots were fenced in to keep the deer out; on some they thinned the brush; one they only "ringed" trees of certain sizes; some they had to lodge a huge pine log into a stand of oak in order to make cover; some they thinned; some couldn't be touched.....

The moral of this rather long story is that most of the test plots showed little impact on the number or habits of the native species inhabiting them.

This was a scientific habitat study. It had many stupid aspects, such as not taking into account that the ruffed grouse doesn't need a ramp made from a vaneer log to get on top of a stump...it has wings. It can fly. Rabbits don't need special habitat impact studies because the information is there for the taking in cities, suburban neighborhoods, whathaveyou. However the study was checking the impact on the entire ecosystem....perhaps they were too careful, because out of all those acres of logged-for-profit and felled and left lie trees....there was no impact to species.

That's a problem with environmentalism: it does not take into account the inherant toughness of nature...instead believing that nature is so delicate that the least little disturbance will kill off thousands of species.

That ain't so. Species have been spontaneously becoming extinct for millions of years. With careful management, rather than hunting to extinction...in general....what is that line from Jurassic Park..."Life will find a way."

Me, I do not like clear cutting on steep hillsides. It causes soil erosion and severe degradation, especielly where topsoil is thin.

Good post. And you KNOW in this day and age..there isn't a timber sale that goes forward WITHOUT the enviros perusing it with a microscope. We even have a nut-case here, that goes out and measures, to the inch, the area for the timber sale. Then, of course, ties up the local timber sales folk for months w/FOIA requests, and in the end, initiates a lawsuit anyway. WHY they don't just go right for the courts in the first place is beyond me.....quess it would be TOO fast. You have to DRAW OUT THE IRRITANT factor, dontcha know! I really really really detest some of these people.

Me, I do not like clear cutting on steep hillsides. It causes soil erosion and severe degradation, especielly where topsoil is thin.

Which was really my only point.

A re-reading of my posts would reveal that I'm not anti-logging -- I merely object to the facile "it does no damage" claims, which are untrue. Your discussion of "the toughness of nature" is simply a backhanded admission that the large, rapid changes caused by logging are damage.

The real point, on which we agree, is that logging is not the huge disaster the enviros make it out to be. As I noted above, a nice visit to Camp Sherman, OR will show how little long or medium term damage is really done by properly-conducted logging.