WILDLIFE SCIENCE: LINKING ECOLOGICAL THEORY AND MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS - CHAPTER 13 pptx

Pioneers in the arena of the application of ecological principles to the management of natural resources — forests, rangelands, fish, and wildlife — could have been called applied ecolog

Part III Habitat

13 From the Management of

Single Species to

Ecosystem Management

Jack Ward Thomas

CONTENTS

References 237

Wildlife management has been traditionally separated, though not too cleanly, into the management

of populations and the management of habitats of targeted species (Leopold 1933) Most species of management attention were game species (species that were hunted), species trapped because of the value of pelts, or (much more recently) species determined to be threatened or endangered — or likely

to be accorded such status This separation between species management and habitat management can never be complete, because many species have the capability to dramatically influence their own habitats and, simultaneously, the habitats of myriad other species

Early on it was recognized that wildlife management is a “decision science,” wherein ecological understanding, public opinion, economic trade-offs, and compliance with laws and regulations are melded into management decisions and activities, as detailed by Giles (1978) These various aspects

of wildlife conservation and management expanded over the years, and this growing recognition

was well illustrated in The Wildlife Society’s publication Wildlife Conservation — Principles and

Practices in 1979.

During the period 1890–2006, in the United States, knowledge within the overall realm of ecology increased at an ever increasing rate — along with building legal pressures to apply this new

knowledge in what was to become known as multiple-use management Within some 50–60 years

after 1890, this had led to dramatic alterations in the management of wildlife populations and, to some lesser extent, their habitats The expanding knowledge base emanating from experience, research, and their integration helped produce a growing public and scientific concern relative to the welfare

of wildlife and wildlife habitats The end result was the passage of a plethora of laws focused on environmental concerns, with some focus on wildlife and ecological integrity in the late 1960s and 1970s (e.g., USDA Forest Service 1993)

Around the turn of the nineteenth century, roughly during 1890–1910, a rapidly increasing number

of citizens of the United States were expressing concern and supporting action to protect remaining wildlife populations and begin restoration of wildlife to areas of extirpation These efforts included increased involvement by scientists — often through or by members of the Boone and Crockett Club (Trefethen 1961), which was established in 1887 Accumulating knowledge and rising concerns combined, not always smoothly, to produce a half century (1900–1950) of intermittent but dramatic changes in the management of both plant and wildlife communities It is interesting to note that such leaders as Aldo Leopold were seminal thinkers who, quite easily and naturally, crossed disciplinary lines Leopold was trained as a forester but was both a founder and President of the Ecological Society and The Wildlife Society (Meine 1988)

225

As MacFayden (1963) put it

The ecologist is something of a chartered libertine He roams at will over the legitimate pre-serves of the plant and animal biologist, the taxonomist, the physiologist, the behaviorist, the meteorologist, the geologist, the physicist, the chemist, and even the sociologist; he poaches from all these and other disciplines It is indeed a major problem for the ecologist, in his own interest, to set bound to his divagations

Smith (1995) and Golley (1993) did a masterful job of succinctly tracing the development of ecological sciences These innovations provided the building blocks for the establishment of the pro-fession of wildlife management, which is, simply, application of ecological understanding coupled with frequent mid-course corrections taken in response to legal requirements and in the spirit of adaptive management The following discussion of the early development of the science of ecology

as an underpinning for wildlife management borrows heavily from Smith’s (1995) work

In North America, Cowles (1899) and Clements (1916) were leaders in the development of information and theories in the dynamics of plant communities including the concepts of plant community succession The trophic–dynamic concepts of ecology (Lindeman 1942) evolved from the studies of E A Birge and C Juday of the Wisconsin Natural History Survey in aquatic systems and marked the beginnings of modern ecology From these efforts evolved work by Hutchison (1957, 1969) and Odum (1969, 1970) on energy flow and energy budgets The pioneering work on nutrient cycling was done by Ovington (1961) in England and by Rodin and Bazilevic (1964) in Russia

Early studies in animal ecology in Europe were mostly influenced by Elton’s (1927) Animal

Eco-logy Tansley (1935), a British plant ecologist, advanced the concept of the ecosystem — and things

were never the same again Shelford’s (1913) Animal Communities in Temperate North America was

an early pioneer of ecological studies in North America He stressed the relationships of plant and animals, with emphasis on the concept of ecology as a science of communities Allee et al (1949)

came out with the encyclopedic Principles of Animal Ecology, which emphasized trophic structures

and energy budgets, population dynamics, natural selection, and evolution This was accompanied with the increasing understanding across ecological disciplines that plant and animal communities are not and were never truly separate entities

Lotka (1925) and Volterra (1926) developed theoretical approaches to ecological studies that opened new experimental approaches Gause (1934) investigated interactions of predators and prey and competition between species Andrewartha and Birch (1954) and Lack (1954) provided a found-ation for studying regulfound-ation of populfound-ations Niche theory evolved from these studies Behavioral ecology evolved from the seminal work on territoriality by Nice in the 1930s and 1940s (e.g., Nice 1941) The sub-field of behavioral ecology emerged from these beginnings Seminal publications in

this arena included Wynne-Edwards’ (1962) Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behavior and Wilson’s (1975) Sociobiology.

Population ecology, due to the requirements for qualitative approaches, led inexorably to the development of theoretical mathematical ecology in the arenas of competition, predation, community and population stability, cycles, community structure, community association, and species diversity (Smith 1995) Mathematical modeling as an approach to ecological understanding and management has continued to the present

Pioneers in the arena of the application of ecological principles to the management of natural resources — forests, rangelands, fish, and wildlife — could have been called applied ecologists But, instead, they are referred to as foresters, range managers, and fish and wildlife biologists As examples of early application of ecological principles and understanding, we have such pioneering

work as that of Stoddard (1931) who in, The Bobwhite Quail, put forward the concept of using fire to hold back plant succession to favor the production of bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus) Federal

land managers concerned with fire management only full grasped such concepts of fire in ecosystem management with the past two decades

Leopold (1933) put forward the application of ecological principles to the management of wildlife

in the classic Game Management Lutz and Chandler (1954), in Forest Soils, discussed nutrient cycles

and the role they played in the forest ecosystem and their consideration in management Leopold’s

(1949) A Sand County Almanac called for an ecological land ethic but did not receive wide attention

from the general public until the mid-1970s

Carson’s (1962) Silent Spring brought the public’s attention to environmental problems resulting

from the careless use of chlorinated hydrocarbons and the effects on animal life Ehrlich and Ehrlich (1981) brought attention to causes and consequences of extinctions And, essentially, a revolution in public concern and attention to environmental problems resulted

The sum effect of this accumulating knowledge and concerns over the environment led to the plethora of environmental laws that were enacted in the United States (and elsewhere in the world)

in the 1960s and 1970s The 1970s were to become known as the “environmental decade.” These laws included Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960, Wilderness Act (1964), Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), National Environmental Policy Act (1970), Endangered Species Act of 1973, Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, and the National Forest Management Act of

1976 (USDA Forest Service 1993)

After 1960, a plethora of volumes began to appear related to the application of ecological

under-standing in wildlife management A few of these were Wildlife Biology (Dasman 1964), Wildlife

Ecology: An Analytical Approach (Moen 1973), Wildlife Management (Giles 1978), Principles of Wildlife Management (Bailey 1984), Wildlife Ecology and Management (Robinson and Bolen 1989), Managing Our Wildlife Resources (Anderson 1985), A Review of Wildlife Management (Peek 1986),

and The Philosophy and Practice of Wildlife Management (Gilbert and Dodds 1987) Each was

predicated on the inclusion of knowledge from the sister or codiscipline of ecology in forms that could be applied to wildlife management

In the United States, among other nations, a “feed back loop” developed, wherein new concepts emanating from science, especially the ecologically based disciplines, produced demands from the scientific community and conservation-minded publics for incorporation of those new concepts into the laws and regulations outlining public policy relative to wildlife and land management Beginning in the 1970s, politically, legally, and technically inadequate attempts by government entities (particularly public land management agencies) to comply with new laws and regulations demonstrated that there was inadequate information and applicable and defensible techniques to comply with legal requirements (Thomas 1979)

This proved especially onerous as the situation was constantly revised and redefined by legal opinions from the courts relative to challenges to agency actions by proliferating environmental organizations These challenges were encouraged by the Equal Access to Justice Act (USDA Forest Service 1993), which not only allowed suits against federal agencies but provided for compensation

to plaintiffs if they were victorious and excused them from liability if they lost

In addition to incorporating new information and understanding from ongoing research and consultations with technical experts, land and wildlife management agencies were investing heavily

in their own research and synthesis to enable them to comply with applicable laws A number of examples, singly and in accumulating interactions, of this “feed back” phenomenon exist I believe, perhaps because I was deeply involved as a scientist, planner, and head of the U.S Forest Service with the dramatic changes in land and wildlife management on the National Forests, that this rapid evolution of management approaches, presents the best illustration of the transition to ecosystem management (Thomas 2004)

These changes in attitude, approach, and application of available scientific understanding came dramatically to bear in land and wildlife management on the National Forests over a period of less than

a decade This shift was facilitated by rapidly accumulating knowledge from ongoing research New knowledge was accumulating faster than it was, or perhaps could be, incorporated into planning and management — that is, federal land and wildlife management agencies were increasingly vulnerable

to challenge in court

This new knowledge almost immediately interacted with a spate of new environmental laws and regulations — that is, it had to be incorporated more expeditiously into management to avoid legal challenge The “petri dish” was to be the federal court system That, in turn, focused public attention, increasingly expressed through legal challenges, on management of the National Forests This attention was exacerbated by the insistence of the Reagan and G H W Bush administrations, and reinforced by consistent budget direction from Congress, to “get out the cut,” as the employees put it, and, to steal a phrase from Admiral Dewey, with the implication of “Damn the torpedoes — full speed ahead” (Hirt 1994)

From 1897 to 1960, the National Forests were managed under the sole direction of the Organic Administration Act of 1897 That Act stated that no Forest Reserves (the precursor to the National Forests, which were established in 1905 along with the simultaneous establishment of the U.S Forest Service) could be set aside “except to improve and protect the forest … or for the purpose

of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber …” (USDA Forest Service 1993) It was not until the passage of the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of

1960 that the Forest Service was mandated to be concerned with sustained protection and production

of wildlife along with timber, wood, water, recreation, and grazing This Act legitimized the course

of management that the Forest Service had already put into action — at least in theory This Act essentially stopped the ongoing “raids” on National Forest System lands by the National Park Service (for National Parks) and the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service (for wildlife refuges)

Improved understanding of ecological processes applicable in management and planning by wildlife and land management professionals was increasing rapidly in federal land management agencies Newly hired fish and wildlife biologists, geologists, hydrologists, economists, social scientists, ecologists, and other technical specialists produced increased internal pressure for change

in management direction and processes that were manifested in the “environmental laws” passed largely in the 1970s The most prominent laws affecting how wildlife and their habitats were to

be considered in planning and management were the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (which would become known as the “900-pound gorilla” of environmental laws), and the National Forest Management Act of 1976

Though unclear at the time of their enactment, these three laws would ultimately interact to ensure that rapidly accumulating knowledge in the overall arena of ecology would more profoundly influence management of the National Forest System These influences on the management of National Forests were, in less than a decade, rapidly spread — in varying degrees and aspects — to other federal lands and to state and local jurisdictions and ownerships

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 required that all land management activities car-ried out with federal funds be subject to detailed analysis to determine the associated environmental effects of proposed alternative courses of action (including a “no action” alternative) Such analyses were required to take a “hard look” at environmental consequences of proposed actions Just how

“hard” that “look” had to be to meet the intent of the law continuously ratcheted up as decisions con-tinued to emerge from the federal courts (i.e., as legal precedents were established) One of the initial sponsors of the National Environment Policy Act, Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington, said that he expected the longest Environmental Impact Statement to be about 10 pages Today, some such documents run to well over 1,000 pages

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 also contained a “time bomb,” which was unrecognized

or unappreciated at the time of passage This “time bomb” was hidden from plain sight and was clearly stated for all those who actually studied the wording of the proposed Act The bomb did not explode upon the wildlife and land management scene until the early 1990s But, when the explosion happened, land management was profoundly changed When queried as to the stated purpose of the Act, natural resource management professionals, and ordinary citizens, will almost universally reply, even today, that the purpose is — pure and simple — the prevention of the extinction of individual species That is true enough, but the stated purpose of the Act is broader than that — much broader than attention to individual species The focus was on ecosystems “The purposes of this Act are

to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species may be conserved, (and) to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species …” (USDA Forest Service 1993)

Whether it was clear or not to those who drafted the Endangered Species Act, or to those who enacted it into law, this was a huge change in law, one of the most dramatic in history related to the management of natural resources Ecosystems consist of interacting organisms (plant and animal) and the abiotic environment with which organisms interact (Smith 1995) Therefore, conserving a threatened species or an endangered species will, by law, involve consideration of the conservation

of the ecosystem of which it is part The general public and members of Congress — and even Presidents — exhibited no real understanding, or appreciation, of just what that meant and required

in terms of changes in land management (Yaffee 1994) Conversely, the federal judiciary did and does understand That understanding is consistently reflected in a consistent series of rulings from the federal bench After all, the law means what judges say it means

The focus of protective management actions in response to those court decisions is, increasingly, focused on the immediate and long-term sustenance of ecosystems upon which threatened species or endangered species depend And, “species” has grown to include all species of animals (vertebrates and invertebrates) and plants (including even fungi and bryophytes) Many of the legislators that voted for the passage of this Act now maintain that they either misunderstood what was quite clearly stated or they had no appreciation of what the consequences of adherence to the letter of the law would produce in terms of social and economic effects But, there have been no serious attempts to change the Endangered Species Act since its passage in 1973 — 34 years at this point

The National Forest Management Act of 1976 provided, also quite inadvertently, another bold requirement for National Forest planning and management that has since spread to other federal lands The Forest Service had, upon request, drafted the legislation that was sponsored by Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota The partial intent of that legislation was to restore prerogatives of agency professionals that had been lost in court decisions relative to clear cutting on the National Forests The Forest Service had been practicing clear cutting even though the Organic Act called for the marking of individual trees for cutting The new law (National Forest Management Act) also required that long-term (10–15 years) plans be prepared for each National Forest

Details as to just how the law would be carried out were left to the Forest Service to describe

in regulations Another time bomb, probably inadvertently, would be tucked away in these new regulations This obscure provision, coupled with the Endangered Species Act, would force a dra-matic change in management direction for the public lands of the United States — first in the Pacific Northwest That obscure provision in regulations required that “viable populations of all native and desirable non-native vertebrate species will be maintained well-distributed in the planning area.” Given the spatial constraints involved (which did not exist in the Endangered Species Act), this was

an even tougher requirement

The federal lands of the United States and, most dramatically, the National Forest System have been profoundly impacted, over the period 1990–2005, by required changes in management approach This resulted from dynamic interaction of new knowledge, the increased engagement of ecologically based professions, a more active and environmentally concerned citizenry, extant envir-onmental laws, and increasing litigation (Hirt 1994) Application of the new knowledge resulting from scientific inquiry to federal land management has been most dramatic with lesser impacts on state and private lands Why? Political decisions for the management of federal lands have been made, to the extent possible, to bear the economic consequences of adherence to the environmental laws on public lands (Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team 1993)

The Forest Service was, in spite of the directions in the OrganicAct of 1897 to provide a continuing supply of timber to the American people, increasingly constrained by political and economic factors (1897–1946) from producing any appreciable amounts of timber Powerful forces in the private sector did not, for obvious reasons, want the competition of timber from federal lands Pressures to hold down production of timber from public lands were reinforced during the Great Depression (1929–40)

when demand for wood products dropped dramatically Then, the “cost plus 10%” contracts relative

to the provision of materials needed for the war effort, during the run up to and through the end of World War II, provided all the timber required — even for war effort This was simply too sweet a deal for private industry, and their representatives in Congress, to allow any significant competition from timber originating from federal lands But, by the end of the war, timber supplies from private lands were running out (Hirt 1994)

American military personnel, most of who came to maturity during the Great Depression, started their return to civilian life in late 1945 A grateful nation welcomed them with the so-called GI Bill, which, among other features, facilitated home ownership And, suddenly, the housing boom was on There had been few houses constructed from the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 to end of World War II in 1945 — a 16-year hiatus Demand for wood products suddenly exploded New contracting rules were adopted that facilitated sales of timber from public lands As a result

of these factors, timbers sales from the National Forests grew steadily until, by the start of the 1990s, the timber cut from the National Forest System was near 13 billion board feet per year and the administrations in power were pushing, through the newly required forest planning process, for

25 billion board feet per year The Forest Service was, creatively, dragging its collective feet from complying with these pressures (Hirt 1994)

To come into compliance with environmental laws, it was essential for the Forest Service and other federal land management agencies to step up the hiring of an array of specialists whose pro-fessions were based in applied ecology Such specialists had, up to that time, been a relative rarity

in a professional workforce dominated by foresters, range management specialists, and engineers Included were wildlife biologists, fisheries biologists, ecologists of various types, soils scientists, hydrologists, landscape architects, economists, social scientists, and others (Hirt 1994; Yaffee 1994) Those who resented their increasing presence and influence referred to them, collectively, often with

a sneer or worse, as “those ologists.”

By this time, the late 1980s, hundreds of thousands of miles of logging roads snaked across the National Forest System and adjacent private lands Clear cut timber harvest units fragmented the landscape into smaller and smaller patches of mature trees (Hirt 1994) At first, there was little concern as the guidelines instituted to maximize the positive effects and minimize the negative effects

of these actions on “charismatic mega fauna” such as mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginanus), and elk (Cervus elaphus) paid off The new roads opened up many

hundreds of thousands of acres to easy motorized human access Species adapted to an interspersion

of mature forest and openings created by timber harvest activities prospered

Until the second half of the twentieth century, wildlife management was most commonly directed

at species that were hunted or fished That management took several basic forms First and foremost was protection from overexploitation by hunters Second was the control of predators (which might also prey on domestic livestock) Third was the protection of habitat usually in the form of “refuges”

of one sort on another (Trefethen 1961)

Early texts, such as Leopold’s (1933) Game Management, emphasized those factors and added

insights such as that without habitat there would be no wildlife and that provision of “food, cover, and water” within the “home ranges” of the animals of interest was the essence of wildlife management The economic depression that swept over the western world from 1929 to 1939 and the years

of World War II from 1939 to 1945 put a damper on what had been the growing concerns with wildlife welfare But the seminal thinkers in the field were, if anything, increasingly active and innovative

The rapidly accumulating knowledge from the various fields of ecology was being ever more rapidly translated and transferred into the realm of wildlife management and recognized by the emerging philosophers of the role of ecological understanding in human affairs And, some of those thoughts were to be proven both prescient and precursors to change that would reach far beyond wildlife management A rising public understanding and concern over ecosystems was looming just over the horizon

In 1942, Aldo Leopold simply stated that “Communities are like clocks, they tick best when possessed of all their cogs and wheels” (Leopold 1942) This now obvious but, then prescient statement, was the maxim that was to serve as the ecological underpinning of the Endangered Species Act in 1973

Paul Ehrlich echoed that profound observation by saying “Everything is connected to everything else” and, therefore, “There is no free lunch.” In other words, managers cannot make any change

in the natural world that will not have ripple effects throughout plant and animal communities Intensive management of any ecosystem for products desired by humans would, inevitably, have ecological consequences That likewise prescient statement would find its way into law in the form

of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1973

Another early ecologist, Frank Egler (1954), observed that “Ecosystems are not only more complex than we think; they are more complex than we can think.” Those simple maxims from early ecologists make it clear that “ecosystem management” — to the extent that anyone was thinking in those terms — was never anticipated to be easy

The old debate of the early twentieth century relative to the management of the public domain was personified by John Muir (who favored “preservation”) and Gifford Pinchot (who favored wise use guided by trained professionals) never abated and continues to rage today — though the animosity between Pinchot and Muir seems to have been much exaggerated (at least until the fight over Hetch Hetchy dam) Pinchot modified his views over the years and in his later years clearly recognized what we would come to call “ecosystem considerations and values” — so much so that a biographer (Miller 2001) would identify his significant role in the evolution of “modern environmentalism.” Times and the understanding and opinions of recognized experts change — as should be expected But, the debate was enhanced and the focus changed with introduction of the concept of the retention of biodiversity as the key to preservation or retention of ecosystem function (Wilson 1986; Huston 1994) Some National Parks, and later wilderness areas, were originally set aside to protect them from alteration by human activity — an intuitive move to preserve what would first emerge as concerns over dampening of human impacts and evolve over the next half century into concerns over the retention of biodiversity But, even these “set aside” areas were gradually changing, some quite dramatically, as fire exclusion, increasing human use, and — in some cases — overpopulations of ungulates dramatically altered plant communities that were evolving rapidly toward what was then thought of as “climax” conditions (in the Clementsian sense of the word: Clements 1916)

Forest and rangeland managers, from the early twentieth century until quite recently, relied on the theory of “ecological succession” (Clements 1916; Gleason 1917) in formulating management over time Under that concept, a plant community reduced to essentially bare ground by some event (fire, logging, grazing, etc.) would, through an orderly and predictable process of clearly identifiable stages, ultimately reach a “climax state,” which would be maintained until altered by a “catastrophic” (i.e., stand replacing) event (Oliver and Larson 1996)

Early wildlife managers quickly recognized that various species of wildlife were associated with various conditions related to successional stages of plant communities Those managers also discerned that some wildlife species of particular interest to hunters were particularly plentiful where markedly different successional stages were juxtaposed — the so-called “edge effect” — providing simultaneous access to food and cover (Leopold 1933) Because game species such as

deer, elk, ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo), and others seemed to

favor such circumstances, the early assumption was that maximization of edge was a universally desirable habitat feature Later research revealed that for many, perhaps most, species, various habitat conditions represented “sources” (survival and reproduction were high and in excess of replacement) and “sinks” (where survival and reproductive success were less than replacement) Interior forest bird species were found to be particularly susceptible to nest predation and nest parasitism in edge habitats [see discussion of edges inHunter(1999)]

Other research (Gleason 1926; Oliver and Larson 1996) showed that the stages of succession, particularly as related to plant species composition, were not as mechanistic and predictable as

originally thought This adjustment in theory was not immediately accepted However, even after

it was accepted that succession was more dynamic than originally thought, structural relationships were at least somewhat predictable and the concept was still useful When working in managed forest conditions, wildlife ecologists spend considerable effort in timing, sizing, and spacing of cutting (reforestation) units and subsequent stand treatments to maintain a mosaic of conditions most favorable to selected species, or a broad spectrum of species, depending on management objectives (Thomas 1979)

It also became evident, over time, that various species exhibited a positive correlation with increasing patch sizes (Leopold 1933; Thomas 1979), which conversely reduced the amount of edge Then, it was wise to consider not only the patch size but the distance between patches and the condition of vegetation between patches, that is, “connectivity” between patches was of concern These needs were found to be widely different among species depending on their mobility and plasticity to react to changing habitat conditions Many of the effects were first noted in studying wildlife and the exchange of individuals between oceanic islands of various sizes and degrees of separation (Simberloff and Abele 1976a,b, 1982) This “island biogeographical theory” (Diamond

1975, 1976) was a key in forest planning in the Pacific Northwest to deal with the long-term survival

of species adapted to “old growth” forest conditions — with emphasis on the northern spotted owl

(Strix occidentalis) (Interagency Scientific Committee 1990).

In 1975, the fir (Abies sp.) forests in the Blue Mountains of Oregon and Washington had been severely damaged by an outbreak of Douglas-fir tussock moth (Orgyia pseudotsugata) The Forest

Service was gearing up for a massive salvage effort But this time, due to the combined consequences

of the National Forest Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, National Forest System personnel were required to prepare massive Environmental Impact Statements before institut-ing any management actions related to insect control and timber salvage operations Those completed environmental impact statements would have to meet the letter of the new regulations issued pursuant

to the National Forest Management Act that required “viable populations of all vertebrate species”

be maintained “well distributed in the planning area.” Forest supervisors were at a loss for how to comply quickly with that requirement so as to salvage the dead timber while it was still economically valuable enough to offset costs A team of Forest Service research biologists teamed with biologists from the National Forest system and the Oregon and Washington state wildlife agencies to produce

a document (Thomas 1979) to support the needed assessments

On the basis of the adaptation of guild theory pioneered by Haapanen (1965, 1966) to associate bird groups with forest type and successional stages, the document divided the 379 vertebrate species known to occur in the “planning area” into groups that exhibited affinity to various successional

or structural stages of the various forest plant communities Patch size, edge, and juxtaposition

of structural stages were ecological theories upon which this approach was based (Leopold 1933) Chapters were written for species of special interest (deer, elk, and cavity nesting birds and mammals) and habitats of particular importance, such as riparian zones Patch sizes, edges, and juxtaposition of stands in various successional states and conditions were considered (Thomas 1979) Over the years, numerous other planning documents structured on this first effort were compiled for other ecosystems elsewhere in North America and abroad (Morrison et al 1998)

This effort begged a question that had been festering in the circles of ecologists and wildlife/land

managers for some time — at least since Leopold (1949), in his essay Green Fire, pondered his

experience with eradicating predators during his time with the Forest Service in the Southwest in the 1920s How could “natural communities” and “intact ecosystems” be said to exist unless all of the species that evolved in that ecosystems were present and in ecologically effective numbers? These thoughts were later encapsulated in the developing concerns with the preservation of biodiversity in managed landscapes (Thomas 1979; Hunter 1999)

By the 1970s, concerns of ecologists and an increasing number of ecologically aware citizens began to be heard in the political arena These concerns grew even faster than the populations of

major predators — grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis), black bears (Ursus americanus), wolves

(Canis lupus), coyotes (Canis latrans), mountain lions (Puma concolor), golden (Aquila chrysaetos) and bald eagles (Haliaetus leucocephalus), and others were being extirpated, or reduced to levels

that precluded ecological effectiveness, over vast areas of North America

These concerns were, by now, backed up by legal muscle and the impending, inevitable applica-tion of the Endangered Species Act (Snape and Houck 1996; Peterson 2002; Salzman and Thompson 2003) and the regulations issued pursuant to the National Forest Management Act Concerns over retention of biodiversity in land management operations were coming to the fore (Huston 1994; Hunter 1999; Natural Resources Council 1999) It was clear that a day of reckoning was at hand for federal land managers Yet, responsible federal agencies were slow to act Why? Both Congress and the executive branch, regardless of the political party in power, were not eager to cross significant majorities of the agricultural and sport hunting constituencies, inflict social and economic costs in adjusting ongoing management, and then suffer the potential political consequences So, pressure,

in the form of instructions from the administrations and the Congress, expressed primarily through the budget, continued the push for a high level of timber production from National Forests The first big breaks fostering the “return of the natives” were precipitated by the inevitable listing of the grizzly bear, the bald eagle, and the wolf as threatened or endangered species under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act The focus of the legally required recovery plans for all three species in the West was on public lands — for grizzlies and wolves this would center on the Greater Yellowstone Area (Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding National Forests) and the Glacier Area (Glacier National Park and the surrounding National Forests in northern Montana) Wolves were both reintroduced via transplants from Canada, and both wolves and grizzlies spread from existing pockets of occupancy Grizzlies responded to enhanced protection and understanding and modification of limiting factors All of those efforts have been successful to the point that serious consideration is now being given to the “delisting” of all three species as threatened species or endangered species

Beginning in the mid-1980s, it was increasingly evident that the “old-growth” (late-successional) forests of the Pacific Northwest were being rapidly logged and fragmented as a habitat type Almost all such forests on state and private lands had already been cut, and those stands remaining on National Forests and lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management were being steadily cut away with concurrent increasing fragmentation of old-growth habitats Researchers from the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon and California state wildlife agencies, and universities were focusing on a cryptic sub-species of owl — the northern spotted owl — that was primarily associated with old-growth forest conditions in western Washington, Oregon, and northern California west of the crest of the Cascade Mountains It was becoming increasingly obvious that the northern spotted owl would be, sooner or later, listed as a threatened species That listing, in turn, could be anticipated to have dramatic negative consequences to the extremely politically and economically powerful timber industry — and its thousands of workers (Yaffee 1994)

The key to the northern spotted owl’s survival was ever more clearly the “preservation of the ecosystem upon which…” it depended — and that was dominated by the most valuable timber

in North America The signs were clear — but elected and appointed officials could not bring themselves to face facts — at least not until after the next election, or the one after that, or the one after that (Yaffee 1994)

In 1992, President George H W Bush attended an international gathering in Brazil of world leaders concerned with the environment — the so-called Rio Summit The pressure was on the United States to take a leadership role, and the Bush administration seemed equally determined not to take on any more constraints on U.S.-based businesses — for example, the wood products industry — than were absolutely politically necessary Heat built quickly relative to the perceived intransigent behavior of the United States in this regard

President Bush called back to Washington and asked for a bold statement or initiative that would play well in the world’s press and not have any really serious impact on business as usual After conference with technical staff, Forest Service Chief F Dale Robertson suggested to the White House