Large Gift Lifts Forest Rights Push

A $1 million anonymous gift has provided an 11th-hour boost to a public campaign to buy logging rights to 25,000 acres of roadless wilderness in the North Cascades.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that with the donation, the Loomis Forest Fund has raised $9 million of the $13.8 million it needs by July. Another $250,000 gift is expected.

But organizers of the campaign have acknowledged they may have to ask the state for an extension to raise all the money. The land is owned by the state Department of Natural Resources.

The 25,000 acres is in two tracts located in the highlands of Okanogan County on the east side of the North Cascades. The northern parcel adjoins the Pasayten Wilderness Area in a landscape of deep forests, high tundra-like meadows, and rounded mountains about 8,000 feet high.

It is a particularly choice habitat for small predators - Canada lynx, martens and fishers.

Only a tiny portion of the 134,000-acre Loomis State Forest currently enjoys protection. The state has created a 2,800-acre natural area around summit meadows of 7,882-foot Chopaka Mountain and nearby Hurley Peak. A renowned early season hike, the two mountains are the furthest east summits of the North Cascades.

“If our campaign succeeds, nearly 110,000 acres would continue as timber management lands,” said Mark Skatrud, a carpenter who lives near the areas to be preserved.

Consolidation likely

Management of the Wenatchee and Okanogan national forests may be consolidated under a single management team.

If the plan is approved, the Okanogan National Forest would no longer have its own forest supervisor and the remaining staff would move into a smaller office.

The staff in the Okanogan office would likely be cut from 65 to between 25 and 45, said Tom Reilly, an Oregon district ranger who headed a study team.

He said the move is designed to shift money to hands-on programs in the forests, which cover much of north-central Washington. The Wenatchee National Forest covers 2.2 million acres; the Okanogan covers 1.7 million.

The Forest Service study team, made up of employees from the Okanogan, Wenatchee and Colville forests and the regional office in Portland, plans to present its final recommendation to supervisors on Thursday.

Trout restorations planned

Plans to kill non-game fish species to make way for trout stocking have been proposed for several Washington lakes in Adams, Grant and Spokane counties.

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Department is holding two public meetings to discuss the proposals, which would be scheduled for the coming fall and spring.

On July 13, 7 p.m., at the Medical Lake City Hall, 124 S. LeFevre St., the agency will address proposed rehabs of North Silver and Silver lakes in Spokane County.

Populations of undesirable fish species such as carp or tench have grown in these lakes, diminishing trout populations and, in some cases, waterfowl production, biologists say.

On Tuesday, the agency held a meeting in Moses Lake regarding plans to rehabilitate Lenice, Merry and Nunnally lakes near Beverly; Quincy and Burke lakes near Quincy; Beda and Brookies lakes on the Winchester Wasteway, and North Teal, South Teal, Herman, Lyle and Thread lakes near Othello.

Lake rehabilitation involves treatment of the water with the natural chemical rotenone to kill fish.

After treatment, lakes are restocked with hatchery trout to restore sport fishing.

Boy catches 255-pound halibut

For the second time this month, a young boy has caught a huge halibut in Alaska waters.

Taylor Brill, 8, of Longview, Wash., landed a 255-pound fish Monday while fishing on a charter boat off Deep Creek.

While the halibut was bigger than the 238-pound fish 11-year-old Kyle O’Brien caught off Dutch Harbor two weeks ago, Taylor won’t get a record because the halibut had to be killed with a .410 shotgun.

“It’s the first time he’s come to Alaska, his first time out in a charter boat and his first halibut ever,” said Taylor’s dad, Bill Brill. “And it took three men to get the fish over the side of the boat.”

Fishing records are the least of Bill Brill’s problems. He’s still trying to figure out where to find the freezer space for all the fish he and his son are bringing back from Alaska.

On Tuesday, Taylor caught a 35-pound Kenai king salmon.

“He thinks he’s pretty hot stuff right now,” Brill said. “But I think he’s just as happy catching crappies and bass.”

State sells game farm

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Department is selling the Whidbey Island Game Farm to a conservation education group.

The Michigan-based Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies has agreed to buy the 175 acres of native prairie for $700,000. The group plans to work with conservation groups to protect one of only two remaining remnant glacial outwash prairies and to teach restoration ecology on Whidbey Island.