Letter from Ed – Blind as a Bat

To members of the forest
products industry, the preservationists’ determination to turn over every
environmental leaf and keep loggers out of the woods seems absurd. It can be viewed in
terms of lost jobs, the value of wood products to our society, and the higher
environmental cost of using substitute materials.

The spotted owl has become a household environmental word throughout
society. When this owl first became the agent for environmental extremists, many of our
friends in the hardwood industry viewed this new threat as a West Coast problem. As I
talked with pallet people in the East, they expressed no real concern. The spotted owl had
not come home to roost in their timberlands.

Buckle up for a ride because serious environmental pressures are now
moving into the hardwood forests that cover much of the East. It is not the spotted owl,
however, or the red cockaded woodpecker. It is the Indiana bat, a creature with a body
less than two inches long.

The details can be confusing, but there is no question that
preservationist groups are using the Indiana bat to push their agenda on private lands.

I understand that a bat census indicated a population of about 352,000
Indiana bats, which are listed as an Endangered Species. These bats hibernate in caves and
then migrate to forests in the spring, with the males apparently staying relatively near
the cave and the females traveling some distance.

Numerous forest products newsletters and the news media have reported
recently on developments related to the Indiana bat.

The U.S. Forest Service found one Indiana bat in the southwest corner
of the Allegheny National Forest. Recently, preservationists — in conjunction with
the Allegheny Defense Project and Heartwood — seized on this opportunity and filed a
lawsuit under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to stop logging on the Allegheny.

The Indiana bat has been used to close the Daniel Boone National Forest
and various other public lands in the East. A federal judge in Kentucky enjoined all
existing and future timber sales in the Daniel Boone until consultations under the ESA are
properly conducted.

A federal judge in Missouri granted a temporary restraining order
against harvesting salvage sales on the Mark Twain National Forest; the Forest Service
apparently failed to give the Indiana bat top priority in its forest management decisions.

The Forest Service is reportedly slowing down timber sales on the
Hoosier National Forest and Wayne National Forest as well. And the Indiana bat is being
used to stop a project on the Shawnee National Forest to eliminate non-native pine on
10,000 acres and replace it with native hardwoods.

While much of the early preservationists’ efforts were directed
toward public lands, they intend to gain control over private lands, too. Heartwood and
the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy plan to sue Allegheny Wood Products and the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service for ESA violations. They claim that suitable habitat for ESA
species exists in West Virginia’s Blackwater Canyon. The preservationists argue that
AWP’s forest management will "take" the Indiana bat and several other
species. Move over private lands; here they come!

Maybe I am missing something. But it appears to me that many people are
"blind as a bat" when it comes to environmental issues. Unfortunately, the
public is absorbing preservationist claims as if they were fact, when more often than not
they thrive on deception.