Crag Law Center

Public Lands Program: Wildlife Diversity

     Many Pacific Northwest wildlife species are susceptible to the impacts of logging projects that remove large trees, whether those trees are dead and alive, and alter the composition of the soils.

     Native Pacific Northwesterners like the Pileated woodpeckers and bull trout are known as “indicator species” because they are very sensitive to changes in their environment, and thus their behavior or survival can be indicative of the environment’s health and suitability as habitat for a host of native species. Both bull trout and pileated woodpeckers are harmed by logging.   For example, bull trout only survive in streams carrying relatively low levels of sediment and with particular water temperatures. Logging causes runoff into streams and rivers, sharply raising sediment levels and thus water temperature, leaving waters both too warm and too “dirty” for the fish. Pileated woodpeckers require dead and dying trees and healthy insect populations to feed on, as well as live old-growth trees for nesting and roosting habitat. Logging tends to remove all three of these tree types from woodpecker habitat, and consequently the woodpeckers do not survive or choose other habitats that have not been logged.

   On behalf of our conservation clients throughout the Cascades and the Interior Columbia Basin, the Crag Law Center has successfully contested logging projects that threaten fish like the bull trout, birds like pileated woodpeckers and spotted owls and mammals like the Pacific fischer and Red Tree Voles.   To date, the Crag Law Center has halted or modified numerous logging project that threatened sensitive ecosystems and habitat for endangered species. 

How You Can Get Involved:

• Get educated on forest issues – The Crag Law Center works with its conservation clients to check out planned projects on the nation’s public lands. The Crag Law Center employs scientists and experts to verify the information the public receives from the government. Call us directly if you are interested in learning more or joining us on a field trip to visit a planned project.  We can link you up with one of our conservation clients who works in your neck of the woods.
• Get involved – Protect your right to be involved in decisions affecting your public lands by learning more about current timber sales and by submitting comments to the Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management.