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Question 6 Are there alternative harvesting regimes which 

 would be less disruptive to fish and wildlife 

 habitat and old-growth ecology than the ones 

 currently practiced? 



As described above in the response to Question 

 3, current harvest schedules place 

 disproportionate emphasis on increasingly rare 

 high-volume old-growth stands. A much more 

 ecologically sound strategy would be to 

 harvest from volume classes in proportion to 

 their occurrence. For example, if x percent 

 of the CFL in a particular drainage is in 

 volume class A, x percent of the harvest in 

 that drainage would be taken from volume class 

 A. This strategy has the advantage of not 

 disproportionately impacting specific key 

 habitats. 



Thinning second growth forests can enhance 

 growth of woody shrubs and tree seedlings 

 (particularly hemlock) , but the resulting 

 forage is not as productive or nutritious as 

 that found in old-growth. Also, low-growing 

 evergreen forbs, found in old growth do not 

 respond well to thinning; and these constitute 

 essential food items for deer. Additionally, 

 thinned stands do not intercept snow well 

 because of the relatively simple canopy. If 

 slash is not removed, mobility is also a 

 problem for deer. In short, thinning does not 

 hold a great deal of promise as an 

 alternative. According to Dr. Paul Alaback of 

 the U.S. Forest Service Experiment Station in 

 Juneau, uneven-aged management, artificial 

 creation of gaps in the canopy, or maintenance 

 of naturally occurring gaps may hold more 

 promise than traditional approaches such as 

 thinning. 



Finally, another far less disruptive 

 alternative would be the selective harvest of 

 individual large trees from a stand. This 

 approach might have merit in high-volume 

 riparian spruce, where individual trees are of 

 great value. Drawbacks to this approach 

 include greatly increased miles of road per 

 unit volume removed, and greatly diminished 

 yield due to the fact that young 

 trees/seedlings are always growing in the 

 shade of the mature canopy. 



