Timber Products to log out spotted owl habitat near the Siskiyou Crest

PANORAMIO Photo by Bolanderi

THP 2-14-089 SIS (Pipeline THP) Timber Products Company, 300 acres; 46% clearcut, 35% commercial thin, 19% shelterwood logging.  Jaynes Canyon, Doggett Creek, Lower Beaver Creek (MD: T47N R9W Sec.7, 17, 21).  Winter operations, moderate erosion hazard, steep slopes up to 65%, wet area, impaired 303.d watershed, oversized units, herbicides, coho watershed, 2 spotted owls within 1.3 mi, fisher within 2 mi, great gray owl within 3.5 mi, trees up to 150 years old.  Estimated public comment deadline: 11/29/14. VIEW

This THP is about 14 miles NW of Yreka, CA and about 5 miles north of the Klamath River near the crest of the Siskiyou Mountains (Condrey Mountain) at an elevation of 4,480 to 6,080 feet. Timber Products is proposing a clearcut and mostly overstory removal tractor based logging operation in ponderosa pine, incense cedar, sugar pine, Douglas fir, white fir, red fir and mountain hemlock forests.  They are claiming that some of the older trees which are up to 150 years old are suffering from insect attack, slow growth and mistletoe (which is a natural process at higher elevations often used by timber companies to justify logging).  The THP area is upslope of the 2014 Beaver Fire which is currently being salvage logged, and flows into the Klamath River which contains coho, chinook salmon and steelhead and is listed as an impaired watershed.  This THP will result in the logging and loss of foraging habitat within spotted owl territory SK475 which was heavily burned by the 2014 Beaver Fire. More information is available on the THP Tracking Center website.
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