Perry 



Chapter 36 



Status of Forest Habitat 



with the matrix and AMA's (1 16,100 hectares), all suitable 

 habitat contiguous with occupied sites will be protected 

 from timber cutting, at least until final recommendations of 

 the Marbled Murrelet Recovery Plan are in place. The FSEIS 

 shows the extent of protection within each physiographic 

 province in these three states. 



At least two caveats go with these estimates. First, 

 estimates are largely based on interpretations of satellite 

 imagery that have not been thoroughly ground-truthed. 

 Second, the estimates refer to quantity of habitat, not quality. 

 Depending on proximity to the coast, landscape context, and 

 size, a given stand may or may not provide quality murrelet 

 habitat ("quality" habitat, as defined here, meets basic nesting 

 requirements, provides refuge from predators, and is relatively 

 stable against catastrophic disturbances). At this time, it is 

 not possible to estimate the proportion of remaining habitat 

 that could be considered of high enough quality to allow 

 long-term nesting success. 



FEMAT documents only Marbled Murrelet habitat on 

 Federal lands. Very little murrelet habitat remains on private 

 lands in Washington and Oregon. Some habitat exists on 

 State lands, particularly on the Tillamook and Elliot State 

 Forests in Oregon, which comprise areas burned over by 

 wildfires in the early part of the century (see Raphael and 

 others [this volume] for estimates of habitat on state lands in 

 Washington). Murrelets are using these areas to some degree, 

 however it is not possible at present to quantify amounts of 

 suitable murrelet habitat on Oregon State Forest lands. The 

 greatest value of these lands for murrelet conservation may 

 be in providing habitat over the next several decades, while 

 the large areas of young forests within Late Successional 

 Old-Growth reserves delineated in Alternative 9 of the U.S. 

 Administration plan for Spotted Owl habitat are maturing. 



Significant amounts of habitat remain on private lands 

 along the California coast. Unlike FEMAT estimates, however, 

 Fox's estimates for the California Coast Range include all 

 land ownerships. 



Historic Habitat 



The area of potential murrelet habitat has been 

 significantly reduced in Washington, Oregon, and California 

 during the 20th century. The first comprehensive survey of 

 forests in western Oregon and Washington was conducted in 

 the mid-1930s (Andrews and Cowlin 1940). At that time, 

 old-growth Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), Sitka spruce 

 (Picea sitchensis), and western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylld) 

 covered 459,700 hectares in the Oregon Coast Range, and 

 1,314,650 hectares on the Olympic Peninsula and the Puget 

 Sound region of Washington (generally within 60 miles 

 [about 100 km] of Puget Sound). Old-growth Douglas-fir 

 had been heavily logged prior to that inventory, especially in 

 western Washington. Andrews and Cowlin (1940) report 

 that "Puget Sound.. .was formerly surrounded by magnificent 

 forests of old-growth Douglas-fir and western red cedar 

 (Thuja plicata). Ease of logging and transportation attracted 

 lumbermen to lands bordering the sound as early as the 



middle of the nineteenth century. Grays Harbor and Willapa 

 Bay, on the coast of western Washington, offered almost 

 equally attractive opportunities for forest exploitation. 

 Practically all the old-growth Douglas-fir forests of western 

 Washington were within 30 to 40 miles (50-65 km) of 

 navigable waterways. Now western Washington, particularly 

 in the vicinity of Puget Sound and Grays Harbor, is 

 characterized by vast expanses of cut-over land largely barren 

 of conifer growth". 



Old-growth harvest continued at a high rate following 

 the 1930s survey, especially on private lands, but increasingly 

 on public lands as well. In 1958, a period of relatively low 

 production, 2 billion board feet (International 1/4 in. rule) 

 (4.7 million m 3 ) were harvested from private lands in western 

 Washington, two-thirds of which was old-growth (Wall 1972). 

 By 1970, annual harvest from private lands had nearly doubled 

 to 3.8 billion board feet (9.0 million m 3 ), 80 percent of 

 which was old-growth. At the same time, harvest from public 

 lands in western Washington was accelerating, increasing 

 from about 0.5 billion board feet (1.2 million m 3 ) in 1949 to 

 2 billion board feet (4.7 million m 3 ) in 1970. Most or all of 

 this was probably old-growth, although I do not have data to 

 give exact figures. 



While the situation in Oregon was somewhat different 

 than in Washington, the basic results were the same the 

 amount of old-growth has been reduced. Large wildfires 

 burned in the Oregon Coast Range in the mid- 1800s and 

 early 1900s; consequently historic old-growth in that region 

 was less extensive than in western Washington. Teensma 

 and others (1991) estimate that 200-year and older stands 

 comprised from 40 to 50 percent of Coast Range forests 

 between 1850 and 1920, and declined to 20 percent in 

 1940, following large fires in the Tillamook area. If we 

 include stands between 100 and 200 years old, some of 

 which are likely to provide suitable murrelet habitat, stands 

 that are potential murrelet habitat increases the proportion 

 to between 50 percent (1940) and 70 percent (1920) of total 

 forest area in the Oregon Coast Range. The 1930s survey 

 documented 581,950 hectares of old-growth Douglas-fir, 

 western hemlock and Sitka spruce in the Coast Range, and 

 an additional 307,550 hectares of "large second growth"- 

 90- to 1 60-year-old stands growing on old burns, with trees 

 approaching the size of old-growth. At the time of the 

 1930s survey between 228,600 and 364,000 hectares had 

 been cut over in the Oregon Coast Range, most or all from 

 old-growth. These values indicate that, prior to logging, 1 

 to 1.5 million hectares of suitable murrelet habitat existed 

 in the Oregon Coast Range. This may be compared to the 

 current 178,500 hectares identified by FEMAT and the 

 FSEIS on Federal lands in the Coast Range. Except for 

 uncertain amounts of habitat on the two State forests 

 mentioned above, virtually all remaining habitat in the 

 Oregon Coast Range is on Federal lands. 



In California, a large proportion of forests within nesting 

 radius of the coast are privately owned. Once dominated by 

 old-growth redwood, these forests have been heavily cut over. 



382 



USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-152. 1995. 



