Another factor rarely talked about associated with the cutting of the upper portions of river basins is the slower growth rates of the timber which in turn greatly prolongs the re-establishment of a hydrological mature forest stand.

When you couple the increased cutting rates, longer timber rotations, more unstable soils, more frequent rain on snow events, etc our river basins have significantly larger portions of the basin in degraded conditions for longer periods when compared to the conditions prior to WWII. These impacts are even more critical when one also factors in the vast conversion of lowland forest to our cities, industrial lands, farm lands etc. And then of course one should probably also include harvest of the second growth in the lowlands in the overall equation of habitat destruction. Can anyone be really surprised that the greatly reduced capacity of our river basins to produce salmonids; many of the basins now have only 10 to 20% of the capacity of historic levels.

Freespool -
Anoither aspect of timber harvest that is rarely talked about is the wide spread conversion of timber lands to monocultures. An important habitat feature found historically in our river basins were beaver pond complexes. Those monoculture stands of Douglas fir do not provide the forage base required by those beavers.

Tight lines
Curt