More about those wolves...
Forest Service acknowledges ESA 'obligations'
Volume 2, Number 11 - Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023
Published twice a week, on Monday and Thursday
Perspective
JUST IN TIME for this morning’s newsletter, I received a copy of a letter dated Friday, Sept. 12, from Regional Forester Jennifer Eberlien to René Voss, attorney for a number of environmental organizations who wrote to the Forest Service last month about the impact of the discovery of gray wolves on Sequoia National Forest.
As reported Monday HERE, Voss wrote on behalf of four organizations that have a long history of activism related to giant sequoia issues — the Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Sequoia Taskforce of the Sierra Club, the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute and Sequoia ForestKeeper.
In his Aug. 15 letter (published as part of Monday’s newsletter), he called upon the Forest Service to “pause” certain activities — including the Region 5 Post-Disturbance Hazardous Tree Management Project and the Emergency Response, R5 Giant Sequoia Fuels Grove Reduction and Restoration Projects — to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and “determine whether any activities associated with those projects and others could adversely affect the wolves.”
Eberlien’s response was short and included this:
We too are thrilled to learn about the wolves. We appreciate your perspective on the potential effects to the wolves from current and future projects and your suggested design features. We acknowledge that we have obligations under the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act to review new information.
The Regional Forester for the Pacific Southwest Region told Voss that Sequoia National Forest (SQF) Supervisor Teresa Benson and her staff “are currently reviewing information provided by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to identify how wolves might affect the forest’s ongoing and future environmental analyses and decisions.”
Earlier this week, Jordan Traverso, a spokesperson for the CDFW, responded to my request for information about what concerns the state agency may have about forest management activities in the area of SQF where the wolves were found during the summer. He said:
“We have not offered a recommendation about fuel reduction in the Sequoia National Forest, though we are familiar with controlled burns as an important method of fuels management. We are tracking the discussion and will continue to work with partners, including the Tule River Tribe of California and U.S. Forest Service, to protect the wolves and their habitat regardless of whether prescribed burns proceed in the area or not.”
According to the CDFW’s website, the gray wolf (Canis lupus) is a recovering endangered species protected under the California Endangered Species Acts (CESA) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Federal Endangered Species Act:
This native species was likely extirpated from California in the 1920s. Wolves have returned to California on their own by dispersal of individuals from source populations in other states. The public reporting of potential wolf sightings are investigated in California, and valued as a monitoring tool. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) did not reintroduce gray wolves to the state.
The big question that remains unanswered is whether the environmental organizations represented by Voss will be satisfied by Eberlein’s response and also whether the reported presence of the wolves will shut down efforts by the Forest Service and others — including Save the Redwoods League — to reduce fuels in giant sequoia groves.
A spokesperson for SQF said a news release about gray wolves on the forest is expected to be released later today.
Stay tuned!
Wildfire, water & weather update
There’s a chance of thunderstorms in the high country of the Sierra Nevada this afternoon, but otherwise, no weather watches, warnings or advisories and generally pleasant weather in the forecast. The best Sierra Nevada weather forecasts can be found at NWS Hanford, HERE, and NWS Sacramento, HERE.
Wildfire update: Here’s the federal Situation Report for today. Across the country this morning, there are 51 uncontained large fires, in addition to 32 fires being managed under a strategy other than full suppression. That’s four fewer uncontained large fires than Monday.
In California, not much has changed with WatchDuty HERE, and it shows most of the large fire activity in the state remains still in the far north.
The exception is the Redwood Fire in Sequoia National Park which I have reported on previously. That fire was at 650 acres yesterday, according to Inciweb. As reported previously, officials are managing the fire with a “confine and contain” strategy and expect it will grow to about 3,000 acres.
From the latest Inciweb report (HERE):
Firefighters began aerial ignitions on the fire today. A combination of aerial and hand ignitions will continue throughout the week. Fire size is expected to increase to about 1500 acres throughout this time. This will allow firefighters to regulate the intensity of the fire as fuels are consumed. Regulating the intensity of the fire will help to ensure that there are favorable fire effects within the burned area, especially as the fire moves through giant sequoia groves. During ignitions, smoke impacts are likely to be more pronounced overnight and in the morning in Giant Forest, the foothills, and the community of Three Rivers. However, ignitions will also serve to limit the overall duration of smoke impacts from the Redwood Fire.
CalFire’s incident page had not been updated by the time I put this report together this morning. You can check it HERE.
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Giant sequoias in the news
• How California has used artificial intelligence to help detect wildfires — and knock them down more quickly — is covered in THIS article at Phys.org.
• CalMatters had a nice piece earlier this month about wildfire smoke and climate change in California. Read it HERE, and an excerpt:
Wildfires and climate change are locked in a vicious circle: Fires worsen climate change, and climate change worsens fires.
Scientists, including those at the World Resources Institute, have been increasingly sounding the alarm about this feedback loop, warning that fires don’t burn in isolation — they produce greenhouse gases that, in turn, create warmer and drier conditions that ignite more frequent and intense fires.
• While the Sierra Nevada has had an exceptionally mild wildfire year so far, that’s not the case in the far north of California where the Smith River Complex and other fires have been burning for months. The LA Times this morning has a piece about how Del Norte County residents have survived on generator power for more than three weeks. The story describes the extraordinary measures taken to restore power as the fire still burns. You can read it HERE, and an excerpt:
During the wildfire response, Pacific Power utilized 44 commercial-grade generators to power 13,000 customers across Del Norte County and distributed more than 200 residential generators, said Tiffany Erickson, a spokesperson for PacifiCorp. Each generator averaged about 47,000 gallons of diesel every 24 hours, she said, refueling two to three times a day.
Giant sequoia around the world
Earlier this year, a triangular deck was built around the base of one of two giant sequoias growing in Queenstown, New Zealand. The two trees, still called Wellingtonia (an early name for giant sequoia) were planted about 1876 outside the courthouse there by Lake County Council Clerk Philip Boult. The new deck was built to protect the roots of the tree from trampling.
Boult is reported to have raised the trees from seed given to him by James Hector, an explorer and naturalist.
The trees are known as the “Trees of Justice” in Queensland because Boult reportedly planted them to provide shade outside the courthouse for defendants. An information panel posted near the trees reports that Boult “got to experience the fruits of his own labour about 1885 after he embezzled money from the council and was sentenced to five years’ jail.”
According to Wikipedia, “Queenstown, New Zealand, sits on the shores of the South Island’s Lake Wakatipu, set against the dramatic Southern Alps. Renowned for adventure sports, it’s also a base for exploring the region’s vineyards and historic mining towns.”
See photos and read more about the trees HERE and HERE.
Thanks for reading!
Is it just my imagination, or did the forest service’s response to the four conservation groups’ concern about the wolves sound like a form letter, merely acknowledging receipt of theirs?