Clear-cutting is tragic

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game, with the complicity of the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, believes that it can improve on the magnificent mix of old growth Douglas fir and ponderosa pine forest along the 165 acres of lakeshore trail at Farragut State Park by logging most of the old growth Douglas fir and scalping the ground clean of all vegetation.

Three acres of this extremely popular trail at Jokuhlaup Point have already been clear-cut for a viewpoint. The 10 adjacent acres that have been virtually clear-cut and ground scalped, is the Fish and Game’s example how to improve the forest and could be a horrible preview of coming attractions if it has its way and continues to log the beautiful and popular lakeshore trail.

Old-growth Douglas fir would be sacrificed along with ocean spray and the fragrant blossoms of syringa, to be replaced by the acrid smell of poisonous herbicides in a futile attempt to prevent the invasion of spotted knapweed. This noxious weed readily establishes itself where the park has been logged. It plagues much of Farragut, but is currently all but absent along the beautiful lakeshore trail.

What a shame. What a disaster.

Barry Rosenberg

Priest Lake, Idaho