In a recent post forwarded by Dennis from Steve Herman, he described an
ongoing battle to protect a large area of land in Douglas County called
Sagebrush Flat. This area, in addition to being one of the last areas
of Sagebrush/steppe habitat left in the Columbia Basin, is also home to
a population of Pygmy Rabbits, where they are endangered. I wrote to
Jennifer Belcher expressing concern for the protection of the area and
today I received a reply form Kaleen Cottingham, a supervisor at DNR. In
the letter she emphasized three points: 1) the land is a state trust land
and, as such, is not considered in the same way as "public land." These
lands are managed to provide economic support to trusts (such as schools)
and are considered more like private land; 2) there is a Pygmy Rabbit
recovery plan in draft with the Dept. of Fish & Wildlife. There is still
time to provide comment on this plan; and 3) if there is to be permanent
protection of this area (and other sensitive trust lands) they must be
purchased from the trust. DNR has submitted funding proposals to the
legislature under the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program and the
Trust Land Transfer Project.

Now I'm just a lowly birdwatcher on the citizen/recreational user/resource
exploiter totem pole, but there seems to be a few issues here: - I'm a
little confused about the role of trust land in this state; if the land is
in trust, isn't it in trust to the people of Washington and future
generations (i.e., isn't the "public" a trustee, too?)? If it's considered
to be more like private land, what's the difference? Anyone know the legal
implications? Second, apparently the draft WDFW recovery plan is stating
that grazing has "beneficial effects" on Pygmy Rabbit populations. Last
time I checked a 750 pound cow wasn't to beneficial to a pygmy rabbit. Does
anyone know this to be true? And finally, in a blatent attempt to act as a
representative for resource management, Ms. Cottingham suggests that I
(we) support protection of Sagebrush Flat and other sensitive trust lands
by contacting our State Legislators to support the property acquisition
proposals.
Sorry this took up so much space, but I thought it might interest y'all.

David Buckley----------------------------------------------------------------
lsdb at u.washington.edu
West Seattle, USA