You are very much correct on that.

The court injunctions that stopped the cutting on the ANF for all those years has had a very harmful affect on the habitat and its ability to support the number of deer it once did. As those old clear-cut areas grew into pole timber with no new clear-cuts to replace them the areas that had been supporting 60 or more deer per square mile reverted to habitat that could only support about five deer per square mile. That was and still is a large part of the reason we have so many fewer deer in many areas.

That elimination of the clear-cuts, and great reduction in all cutting, has also resulted in less snowshoe hare and grouse habitat as well.

Even though the court injunctions were only against the Allegheny National Forest it also affected a lot of the things, such as clear-cuts and even aggressive timber management cutting that had been occurring on state properties as well. Everyone became more cautious of their cutting practices from that day forward in order have their practices defensively sustainable in a court. That alone limit’s the amount of cutting that can be done unless you have more foresters and others to do the environmental impact statements now required.

R.S. Bodenhorn