Steve Hallstrom wrote: "I agree with Dennis that professional salaried
staff would be better than volunteers. However, there may not be funding
available and this is an opportunity to bring more habitiat considerations
into the SCUP process. The environmental and ornithological societies are
being given an opening into changing timber harvest practice everywhere. I
do hope we don't miss it."

Of course when I wrote about paid professionals I knew it would be as Steve
says. This is a clear sign of one of those places the environmental
movement is stalled--that we still have to depend on volunteers for so much
of the work that should be considered vital enough to justify expenditure
of at least a little bit of the money that is wasted by our society and its
governments. I realize that Weyerhaueser can't hire biologists directly to
do the work ("conflict of interest" cripples us in so many ways), but it
should be mandated by law that they contribute the money to an independent
agency that hires such biologists--whenever there is a question whether
their activities have a significant effect on the rest of society (don't
forget that it's *our* salmon and *our* birds that they are extirpating).
There isn't too much concern for dickey birds, but I would have thought
that concern for salmonid fishes would have altered logging practices long
ago. But what if the logging practices that are detrimental to salmonids
are just great for deer? Will the hunting lobby or the fishing lobby (or
just the logging lobby) win out? Stay tuned.

Parenthetically, read the latest _National Wildlife_ for the way industry
is fighting back against environmentalists (the question of compensation
for "takings"); it's a horror story worthy of Stephen King.

But don't let my diatribe prevent you from volunteering for this very
important cause! We badly need studies of this sort, but I think all of us
agree that at the same time we should err on the side of *protection* even
before the studies are completed.

Dennis Paulson