Expert Questions Globe Project’s Impacts On Wildlife

Expert Questions Globe Project’s Impacts On Wildlife

Contacts:
Chris Joyell, Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project – 828.337.6927
Doug Ruley, Southern Environmental Law Center – 828.285.9125

Blowing Rock, NC – A noted bear expert has criticized the U.S. Forest Service’s environmental analysis of the Globe Timber Sale, adding to the growing numbers of biologists and ecologists who have raised major concerns about the proposed logging project in the Pisgah National Forest.

The U.S. Forest Service has proposed to log over 210 acres of the Globe Forest, which lies just south of Blowing Rock, with the stated purpose “to enhance wildlife habitat.”

Not so for black bears, says Dr. Roger Powell, a zoology professor at North Carolina State University who has published widely concerning black bears in the Southern Appalachians. “Logging that occurs in mature forests, such as those at issue in the Globe project, can have significant negative impact on black bears,” said Powell in a written statement submitted to the agency.

In their environmental assessment, the Forest Service stated that the purposes of the Globe Project include “provid[ing] travel corridors and foraging habitat for black bear.” To the contrary, Dr. Powell wrote that “logging is not needed to create ’travel corridors’ for bears.” In fact, wrote Dr. Powell, roads and other travel corridors that lead to greater human access tend to lead to higher bear mortality.

Moreover, Dr, Powell stated that logging is not needed to provide foraging habitat for black bears, which require “a combination of different foods at different times of the year.” From berries and insects in the spring and summer, to acorns and other hard mast in the fall, “a mature forest [like the Globe] provides all of these food sources for bears.” In contrast, the openings created by logging “last only a few years,” wrote Powell, “and then these logged areas close over and provide hardly any food for bears for next 50 years or more.”

Dr. Powell also criticized the planned logging of old growth forest, citing a Globe Forest survey commissioned by the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project (SABP) and the Southern Environmental Law Center that revealed trees ranging from 80 to 300 years old.

“As a biologist and forest researcher, it is my opinion that all existing old growth should be protected,” said Dr. Powell in his statement. “Old growth is very rare. It makes no sense and is disingenuous to log existing communities that are 200 to 300 years old while designating other, less mature communities to become old growth in the future.”

“Bears don’t need roads,” said Ben Prater, Conservation Director for SABP. “What they need are undisturbed mature forests and, unfortunately, that is exactly what the Forest Service intends to destroy in this timber sale.”

Dr. Powell joins other scientists that have already criticized this controversial project and the plan to log old growth forest. Ecologists from the SABP, Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition and the Western North Carolina Alliance filed comments with the agency, citing the ecological benefits of old growth forests and the negative impacts of the pending logging project.

The Forest Service is expected to reach a final decision this month.