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FIDDLER MOUNTAIN TIMBER SALE
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The first controversial logging sale got underway in the Biscuit Burn on March 7, 2005 and was met by noisy and relentless protests in the woods as well as the streets of Medford and Portland, Oregon. The Forest Service closed the woods for several months until well after the logging was finished. In the summer of 2006, Rolf Skar with the Siskiyou Project took me on a tour of what was left of the forests on Fiddler Mountain. While riparian zones were left untouched, loggin on steep hillsides above the creeks has left deep scars in the landscape. Depending upon one's perspective, it was either an assault on the burned forest, or a job well-done (as a Forest Service employee we met in the woods that day proclaimed).
During the logging operation, the contractor, Silver Creek Timber, logged within the Babyfoot Lake Botanical Reserve, across the ridgetop from the actual sale area. Once the public was finally allowed to re-enter the sale unit, the Siskiyou Project discovered that this illegal logging had taken place. The Forest Service claims that the sale was poorly marked and takes the blame for the "mistake."
In the lower right photo, we see a sugar cone pine seedling struggling to survive in the shadow of the stump of an old growth sugar cone pine snag that was cut as part of the Fiddler Sale. The chances that this seedling will make it are quite remote. As its top reaches above the shade provided by the stump, it is turning brown in the intense Southern Oregon summer sun. Standing snags, on the other hand, provide much needed shade for seedlings like this to grow.