RedCockadedWoodpecker_ClearcutsandLawsuits_VanKerrebrook_Mary_HoustonTX_16May2020_Reel4012.mp3

Mary Van Kerrebrook [00:00:00] So for a long time, the Forest Service did not clearcut, under the Organic Act of the late 19th century. And then in the 1960s, the early 1960s, they started massive clearcutting of National Forests for timber production, not just in Texas, but throughout the Southern United States, Southeast United States, and everywhere really that there were national forests.

Mary Van Kerrebrook [00:00:37] And the timber industry assumed, as happens, an outsized role in Forest Service decisions.

Mary Van Kerrebrook [00:00:49] And, you know, clearcutting, as you know, is the practice of coming in and just removing all of the trees in a stand. And a stand is just a defined geographic area that's been, you know, plotted out for the purpose of harvesting. The Forest Service did, at least theoretically, use two additional variants of clearcutting as seed tree and shelter wood cuttings, but those were essentially just two-stage clearcuts. You know, you'd leave a couple of trees in to, you know, theoretically reseed the area and then come in a year or two later and cut down the rest of the mature trees.

Mary Van Kerrebrook [00:01:38] So red-cockaded woodpeckers are a little tiny bird. It's very hard to see them because they're shy and sort of people-adverse and they require a very specific kind of habitat, which is old-growth pines, which have a disease that softens, doesn't kill the tree, but it softens the wood and makes it easier for the red-cockaded woodpeckers to excavate. And in order to have these characteristics, the pines have to be quite old, you know, 100 to 120 years old.

Mary Van Kerrebrook [00:02:25] So, of course, that brought this little bird into, into jeopardy when clearcutting was taking place all over the forest. And so the population declined very, very precipitously.

Mary Van Kerrebrook [00:02:48] There were a couple of Forest Service biologists involved, but the main one was a guy named Richard Conner. And in hindsight, I imagine he was subjected to all kinds of pressure by his employer.

Mary Van Kerrebrook [00:03:01] But that he, he wrote a, a draft report that looked at the decline in the woodpecker's population from 1983 through 1987, and concluded that the bird was in great danger of extirpation by, I believe, around 1990.

Mary Van Kerrebrook [00:03:30] So that, that report, of course, since it came from the agency and, given the degree of deference that's accorded to federal agencies in these kinds of lawsuits, it was really central to the proceedings. There's plenty of other testimony from other great biologists about what was going on. But, you know, I think that the linchpin of the trial court's decision and the things that the Forest Service really could not overcome on appeal was the fact that its own biologists had said, you know, this bird is about to die out because of the Forest Service timber management practices.