While a Congressional proposal to sell up to 36,000 square miles of public land across the western United States has been put on hold, environmental groups and recreationalists in Oregon are wary that the idea is far from dead.
After the Senate Parliamentarian ruled on June 23 that Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee’s proposal to sell 36,000 square miles of public land violated Senate rules, Lee promised his constituents that he would propose it again with a few revisions. In a social media post, he detailed that land under the United States Forest Service would no longer be touched, but Bureau of Land Management land within five miles of “population centers” would still be up for grabs.
In the Roseburg and larger western Oregon area, a retired BLM wildlife surveyor is concerned over what could happen to threatened and protected species. In Bend and eastern Oregon, hunters and anglers are worried over what meets the criteria for a “population center.”
Checkerboard land habitation
Due to a nearly century-old federal law, public and private land through 18 counties in western Oregon lie in a checkerboard pattern between privately-owned land and public BLM land.
This checkerboard pattern affects wildlife habitation, because private forest lands are typically single-crop tree farms with trees being grown in 30-40 year rotations. Public land, on the other hand, features far more biodiversity and older horticulture–a key survival element for some species.
Erich Reeder, a retired BLM biologist who surveyed wildlife in the Roseburg District, said that if the land sale goes through, there would be harmful, lasting impacts on wildlife.
“You reduce everything, all the biological diversity, to just a monoculture or a housing project, there's no place for all of these other wonderful living beings to live,” said Reeder. “They have nowhere else to go.”
Marbled murrelets and golden eagles
Reeder said in Douglas County, threatened species like marbled murrelets, and protected birds like bald eagles and golden eagles, often rely on BLM land for raising offspring and their nesting needs.
Marbled murrelets are small seabirds from the northern Pacific region who live at sea but nest inland; they are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Murrelets typically nest in old-growth forests, which provide shelter from predators. This allows them to nest and raise their offspring. Since large swaths of land between BLM lands are young tree farms, murrelets have to fly 30 to 50 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean to publicly-owned forests in order to nest.
According to Reeder, there were 32 marbled murrelet nesting sites last year in the BLM Roseburg District. He worries about the future of these sites.
“Every murrelet nesting site on our public forests is of magnified importance because our public forests are the only places left with old-growth forests where they can nest,” Reeder said in an email to KLCC.
On the other hand, while a study in the scientific journal, Ecological Applications puts the golden eagle population in the western United States at around 31,800 eagles, there are very few that nest in the western Oregon area. Reeder estimates there are around 21 nesting sites in the Rogue Valley, Roseburg BLM District, and in the Umpqua Valley region.
In western Oregon, the threatened species rely on old growth forests in public lands to raise offspring. Reeder says their small numbers make the sale of public lands even more alarming.
“While their westside numbers are small in the statewide population, they are all we have on the westside and so each site has much greater significance in keeping a westside population healthy,” said Reeder.
‘What the hell is a population center?’
Backcountry Hunters & Anglers is a nonprofit that does education and advocacy work on “behalf of wild public lands, waters, and wildlife.” The organization has been very vocal against the proposal because they believe it will significantly limit land that recreationalists can hunt and fish on.
Ian Issacson, the co-chair of the Oregon BHA chapter, says Lee’s new proposal, which would allow the sale of certain public lands close to a “population center,” is unclear.
“What the hell is a population center?” said Issacson. “Being intentionally vague with ‘population centers’ is not fooling anybody.”
Issacson said since there are no requirements about what a “population center” is, he is unsure of what is even up for sale. He said hunters and anglers may frequently use land near small towns or even cities.
“In eastern Oregon, specifically, towns like Juntura or Vale or Ontario, within five miles of those population centers are highly productive fish and trucker hunting opportunities,” explained Issacson. “[But] if you put that five mile radius around Bend, Sisters, Redmond, Prineville, there's actually not that many acres of BLM land that are encompassed within that radius.”
Issacson said the fight against the sale is not over, as these lands are very important for recreationists in Oregon.
“A lot of people think, and Senator Lee very clearly thinks, that those are just wastelands and they're not productive,” said Issacson. “As someone who can't afford a million dollar property like Senator Lee probably can, I value those lands because that's where I get to go and enjoy nature. I get to go hunt, I get to fish, I get to shoot. And they're spectacular. They're anything but wasteland.”
