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usually could get over or around the supposed obstacles, and wood 

 debris accumulations (and beaver dams) proved to help produce 

 salmon in many ways". 



Old-growth forest sheds large logs and other woody debris 

 into streams, tying their beds together, stabilizing them. The 

 downed wood also traps gravel, forming spawning grounds, and 

 provides complex cover and diverse pools, where fish hide, rest 

 and feed^" '^. These effects are especially important on steep 

 Northwest streams . 



An unfavorable administrative tendency in the USFS and BLM 

 has been toward quick economic yields and technologic fixes 

 rather than toward ecologic health and long term productivity of 

 lands and waters. It has been a ruin-and-rebuild approach, 

 probably self -deceiving from the start, and often less than 

 whole-hearted on the rebuilding end. Rather than managing 

 conservatively for sustained natural functioning of forests and 

 grasslands, on which such resources as salmon runs depend, there 

 has been radical exploitation, giving high short-term profits to 

 a narrow range of users and damaging fundamental land-water- 

 vegetation functions, followed sometimes by so-called 

 "mitigation." Whenever you hear "mitigation" in connection with 

 stream habitat work, an alarm bell should go off in your mind, 

 and you should examine for trouble. 



67-643 0-93 



