COUGAR FUND ACTION ALERT - Oregon Bill 702 & 2971

COUGAR FUND ACTION ALERT

Help Save Oregon's Cougars

Three new bills have been proposed in the state of Oregon that would allow hunters the opportunity to kill even more cougars. Supporters of these bills claim, once again, that public safety is their concern, yet all these bills do is simply increase sport hunting opportunities. Science has proven that the random killing of cougars does not increase public safety! Oregon hunters are already allowed to kill over 500 cougars each year and the Cougar Management Plan calls for the killing of an additional 782 cougars each year by any means necessary.

House bill 2971 would deputize sport hunters as agents of ODFW to officially kill cougars on behalf of the Cougar Management Plan. Despite voters banning hound hunting in both 1994 and 1996, Senate bill 702 will allow sprot hunters to use hounds during the final three months of cougar hunting season. The third bill is yet to be announced.

Demand that these senseless bills be stopped. A management plan that is not based in peer-reviewed science will have disastrous results for Oregon's cougar population!

The House Agricultural and Natural Resources Committee will hear HB2971 on Tuesday, April 10th at 3:00 PM.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD BY APRIL 10TH AND STOP THIS BILL!
Attend this hearing or write a letter of opposition to this plan to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, the governor, newspapers and this committee!

Contact Information:

Governor Ted Kulongoski
160 State Capitol
900 Court Street
Salem, OR 97301-404
Phone: 503-378-4582
Fax: 503-378-6827

House Speaker:
Representative Jeff Merkley
Phone: 503-986-1200
Address: 900 Court St. NE., 269, Salem, OR, 97301
Email: rep.jeffmerkley@state.or.us

House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee:

Representative Arnie Roblan, Chair
Phone: 503-986-1409
Address: 900 Court St NE, H-292, Salem,, OR, 97301
Email: rep.arnieroblan@state.or.us

Representative Patti Smith
Phone: 503-986-1452
Address: 900 Court St. NE., H-291, Salem, OR, 97301
Email: rep.pattismith@state.or.us

Representative Brian Boquist
Phone: 503-986-1423
Address: 900 Court St NE, H-290, Salem,, OR, 97301
Email: rep.brianboquist@state.or.us

Representative Ron Maurer
Phone: 503-986-1403
Address: 900 Court St. NE, H-391, Salem, OR, 97301
Email: rep.ronmaurer@state.or.us

Representative Jackie Dingfelder
Phone: 503-986-1445
Address: 900 Court St. NE., H-377, Salem, OR, 97301
Email: rep.jackiedingfelder@state.or.us

Representative Greg Macpherson
Phone: 503-986-1438
Address: 900 Court St. NE., H-385, Salem, OR, 97301
Email: rep.gregmacpherson@state.or.us

Representative Brian Clem
Phone: 503-986-1421
Address: 900 Court St. NE, H-278, Salem, OR, 97301
Email: rep.brianclem@state.or.us


YOUR LETTERS AND COMMENTS DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
THROUGH PUBLIC INPUT WE ENABLE OUR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES TO MANGMENT WILDLIFE FOR THE BENEFIT

BLM broke environmental law, appeals court rules

Decision too late to save 400-year-old trees

Jeff Barnard Associated Press
December 5, 2006

SpokesmanReview.com

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated environmental law when it sold old-growth timber in southwestern Oregon without considering the cumulative harm that so much logging was having on northern spotted owls and salmon.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed the ruling of U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan in Eugene, despite the fact that the trees in the Mr. Wilson timber sale had already been felled.

The panel sent the case back to Hogan with orders to have BLM revise the environmental assessment to take a "hard look" at past and future logging in nearby areas.

George Sexton, conservation director for Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, a plaintiff in the case, said it was too late to save the 400-year-old trees, but he hoped the ruling would make BLM stop cutting so much old-growth when much of the U.S. Forest Service is focusing on logging in less controversial second-growth stands.

"I think BLM has decided who butters their bread, and they are connected at the hip with the timber industry," Sexton said. "I don't see BLM ever reaching the point where they decide to hear the public's desire to see old-growth forest protected and move into a less controversial second-growth thinning program until they log all the old growth or the law is changed."
BLM did not immediately return telephone calls for comment.

In the majority opinion, Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote that BLM had violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to consider seven other past and future timber sales in the West Fork of Cow Creek watershed and what that would do to habitat for the threatened northern spotted owl and salmon.

The ruling noted that BLM's environmental analysis was based on broader looks at the impacts of logging that did not specifically address the harm caused by past, present and future logging.
It added that the BLM decided to log despite the fact that the environmental analysis found that four timber sales in the area would remove up 1,000 acres of old-growth habitat, and that future logging would remove some of the last old-growth in some sections.

The timber sale was an area designated for logging by the Northwest Forest Plan, which reduced logging on federal lands in western Oregon, Washington and Northern California. In a dissenting opinion, Judge A. Wallace Tashima agreed with Hogan that because the trees had already been cut, the case was moot.

But Goodwin wrote that if that were the case, BLM could just rush through logging projects before conservationists could get to court.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=162867