Field Report: Mill Rat Timber Sale, Poor Windy Project
Written by Haleigh Martin on May 1st, 2024
Stump of an old-growth tree marked for retention for wildlife habitat within the Mill Rat timber sale. This ancient tree was logged to build another logging road.
Last week, I ventured into the field with George, our Conservation Director, to groundtruth a Medford District Bureau of Land Management (BLM) timber sale called Mill Rat within the Poor Windy project just north of Grants Pass, Oregon. What we found was heartbreaking.
With maps in hand, we followed the newly-built logging road to where the construction had been paused, and there it was in plain sight: two massive, freshly-cut stumps with yellow spray paint (meaning these trees were marked to be retained, not logged) banding their bases. We stood in silence for a moment, imagining what this forest could've looked like with the canopies of these two ancient trees above us, had they been left standing like they were intended to be.
As we stepped off the road, we began to traverse a steep slope through a foot or more of logging debris to get to these two stumps. When I approached the larger of the two, I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of frustration. The Medford District of the BLM continues to contend they do not and cannot log old-growth trees over 36" in diameter, yet here I was, standing on top of a recently-logged stump that was clearly over 50" in diameter.
The saddest part is these ancient trees are two of many that are being logged across the entire Medford District under false pretenses.
The Mill Rat timber sale is only one of the Medford District BLM's attempts to remove ancient trees from your public lands; other examples are the Last Chance, Salmon Run, and Rogue Gold timber sales, amongst many others. The Medford District BLM is destroying old-growth forests in two ways:
By felling trees older than our nation to facilitate the construction of even more logging roads
By removing so much forest canopy from the late-successional forests that those stands can no longer function as old-growth ecosystems.
You can help us stop this.
As we continue to fight timber sales like Mill Rat, we are fundraising to hire a staff attorney to make our fight even stronger. With your help, we can get to ancient trees like these before they are logged to keep them standing.
These trees won't withstand the timber industry's insatiable attempts without help. Forest Watch is designed to do just that, but we can't do it without your help. Thank you for supporting our work to keep ancient trees across the region standing for generations to come.
Image from the Mill Rat timber sale of the Poor Windy project. Photo: Haleigh Martin
Sale location map from the Mill Rat timber sale. Click to enlarge.
Standing on the stump of an old-growth tree logged to build another new logging road. Photo: Haleigh Martin