Dan,
Thanks for the feedback. It's nice to hear from someone with your experience in our area.
We're Smarwood Certified and CDF and our forester seem to really appreciate the energy and thought we put into caring for our forest. The CDF inspector came out for our annual and hung around for 5 hours just chatting and we got to pick his brain and learned so much from him. Very knowledgeable and a great guy. One thing that sort of gripes me is that we have to pay to have a biologist come out and hoot for Spotted Owls every year, even though there are none here. That's a DFG requirement. I understand the spotted fellows really aren't bothered by reasonable logging practices anyway, nor are they as sensitive as some make them out to be. Neat bird.
We did ok this past season: $0.95 for under 16" and $1.05 16" and over. It's been higher in past years. I'm worried about '08 though. We have about 5 acres of beautiful big fir that needs management but the fir market has tanked, and Harwood is out of it. This year I'm focusing some on thinning the tanoak and will produce firewood from that. The idea is to open canopy for the redwoods to gain dominance.
Spotted Owls are my specialty, although I never intended it to be. I did forestry work to make money and got a degree in Wildlife Management and have worked in the timber industry every year since. There are ways to get a two year permit [also known as a USFWS Technical Assistance Letter] but you have other options depending on how often you want to log. I often help local landowners with options up here in Humboldt.
If you want to log for two years and be done for 3-5 or more, you can get a two year permit requiring 3 surveys of the land each year for two and then get two years of open logging without surveys. Otherwise, if you wanted to log in one year and be done for a few you can opt for 6 surveys that year, but you need to be done by 1 February after your June survey ends.
Not to say anything about your forester and biologist, but they need to work to get paid. Sometimes there are other ways that require a little more work up front, but cost less in the long run. Feel free to ask any questions. Ialso work on:
n American peregrine falcon
n Bald eagle
n Bank swallow
n Barred owl
n Chinook salmon
n Coastal cutthroat trout
n Coho salmon
n Cooper’s hawk
n Corvids
n Del Norte salamander
n Foothill yellow-legged frog
n Golden eagle
n Great-blue heron
n Marbled murrelet
n Northern goshawk
n Northern red-legged frog
n Northern spotted owl
n Osprey
n Pacific fisher and other forest and mesocarnivores
n Red-shouldered hawk
n Red-tailed hawk
n Red or Sonoma tree vole
n Sharp-shinned hawk
n Southern torrent salamander
n Steelhead trout
n Tailed frog
n Townsend’s big-eared bat
n Vaux’s swift
n Western pond turtle
n Western screech owl
n Western snowy plover
n Willow flycatcher
Although I think I left something off?
