Big Basin Heartbreak

The news of the CZU Lightning Fire in California hit home for me this past week as the fire swept through Big Basin Redwood State Park—California’s oldest state park and protected habitat of the endangered Marbled Murrelet. This robin-sized seabird comes inland from the Pacific Ocean to the mature and old-growth forests during the summer to nest on the wide branches of the trees. Big Basin Redwood State Park was the center of the discovery of the murrelets’ nesting site in 1974 in a 220-foot-high Douglas-fir, the kind—and perhaps very tree that held that famous nest—that are being burned and scorched now as the fire engulfs 78,000 acres of Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties. Many of the redwoods will survive—there is some good news here from KQED.

While writing my book , Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet (Rodale 2005 and Mountaineers Books 2014), about this extraordinary bird, I spent much time in this spectacular “big-trees” state park visiting the site of the nest discovery, camping with my family under the very tree where the nest was found, and hiking the park trails under thousand-year-old trees and feeling as if I had walked back in time.

Photo of the author at Big Basin Redwood State Park (by M.D. Ruth)

Big Basin Redwood State Park’s historic Headquarters and Visitors Center burned to the ground (details and photos here) and there is extensive damage in the historic core of the 18,000-acre park, including the popular campgrounds. The headquarters building was the site where the park rangers and historian gazed down on a strange downy chick, saved by a tree trimmer in the August 1974, that they identified out as a marbled murrelet—the first confirmed and later documented scientific evidence that these birds nested in trees. Now this historic building is gone.

The remains of the headquarters building at Big Basin Redwood State Park, the site where park rangers solved the great nesting mystery of the marbled murrelet in August 1974. Image by Randy Vazquez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News Via Getty Images

The 1974 discovery eventually placed the murrelet on the list of federally threatened and endangered species and helped project much of its nesting habitat from logging—the single biggest threat to this bird’s survival. While the redwoods and other conifers are thick-barked species and adapted to withstand fire, the murrelets themselves are not adaptable. Their populations in California and throughout their range (north to Alaska) have been declining precipitously. The increased frequency, intensity, and duration of wildlife is not merely a “threat” to these and other birds and wildlife. These fires are happening now.

Please consider making a donation to the Sempervirens Fund to help restore Big Basin Redwood State Park. The Sempervirens Fund is a non-profit land trust dedicated to the conservation of forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains. To the first 20 of my readers who donate $50 to help restore Big Basin Redwood State Park, I will send you a complimentary copy of my book, Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet. Just send me (mariaruthbooks@comcast.net) a screenshot of the to of the email acknowledging your donation and your mailing address. Thank You!

Send me a screen shot like this (with your name in the To field and I’ll send you a copy of Rare Bird!

State's Marbled Murrelet Strategy Finalized

December 3rd’s Board of Natural Resources meeting in Olympia, Washington, brought to an uneasy conclusion the development of the state’s conservation strategy for the endangered Marbled Murrelet. The meeting was appropriately long (5+ hours) and gripping thanks to a very engaged board, much public comment, and agreement that today’s vote was “historic” given the twenty-two years that have passed since the “interim” conservation strategy for the murrelet was put into place.

The upshot: Alternative H was approved in a 4-2 vote with Clallam County Commissioner Bill Peach and Jim Cahill (Senior Budget Assistant to Governor Inslee for Natural Resources) voting “nay” and the rest “yay.” For those of you following this issue, Alternative H was not the alternative preferred by the conservation coalition (Washington Forest Law Center, Washington Environmental Council, Defenders of Wildlife, Conservation Northwest, Olympic Forest Coalition, Seattle Audubon) and other murreleteers as it does not provide enough conservation benefit for marbled murrelets. Nor was Alternative H the preferred alternative of the timber industry and trust beneficiaries as it does not provide enough revenue and jobs. Alternative H, according to the DNR and US Fish and Wildlife Service, meets the requirements under the Endangered Species Act and also the DNR’s fiduciary responsibility to the trust beneficiaries. And, in striking the “right balance” between conservation and revenue generation, the DRN has made no one happy.

Commissioner Peach voted nay on Alt H because he stated his belief that it does not represent the best interests of the trust beneficiaries. He is concerned that the financial impacts to the junior taxing districts have not been clearly explained by the DNR to the board or members of the public. Peach moved to delay today’s vote until March 2020 but his motion was not seconded and so failed.

This fall, Audubon chapters and others in the conservation community also advocated for a delay in the vote (for different reasons) but it became clear later on that such a delay could open the door to involvement by the Department of Interior (via Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Southwest Washington timber industry) and result in an alternative with less conservation value to murrelets.

Jim Cahill voted nay, he stated, because Governor Inslee requested he do so because of his gubenatorial concerns about changes in ocean conditions and what it has done to the marbled murrelet. (I think there is more behind this request, but I am not privy to Inslee’s insights on murrelet conservation issues).

Alternative H is definitely not the win-win everyone was hoping for but with DNR’s mutually exclusive (in my opinion) orders to protect marbled murrelets and log their nesting habitat, Alt H is meh-meh at best. The proof will be when the strategy gets played out on the ground—in the forestlands where murrelets nest.

The highlight of Tuesday’s meeting for me came toward the very end of the meeting when Board Member Chris Reykdal, Superintendent of Public Schools gave this impassioned 3-minute speech (recorded by TVW) about the future of Washington State and the funding of K-12 school construction from DNR timber sales.

The pith of Reykdal’s three minutes: “The $80-90 million that K-12 gets in school construction—we need to phase off that in time. This money has to go to counties. It has to go to the industries that are impacted by these decisions and ultimately to species preservation and habitat preservation.”

Indeed, de-linking school construction from timber harvest is long overdue and it would be a real victory if Reykdal could accomplish this through the state legislature rather than the U.S. Supreme Court (upon entering the Union, Congress mandated the newly formed Washington state use a portion of its natural resources generate revenue to fund schools, hospitals, reform institutions, and other social services; it did not, however, specify logging).

The seven years of board meetings have been largely civil and congenial, especially under the leadership of Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz. The board members expressed their gratitude to DNR staff and also to the members of the public who have been showing up at meetings over the past several years. I think they were sincere.

So, this wraps up a very long effort to craft a Long-Term Conservation Strategy for one very special bird and its extraordinary habitat. My thanks to you all for your attention to this complex and important issue. I have a hunch it’s not quite over yet since a large swath of the public audience at the board meetings these any years are lawyers.

My hope is that the murrelet will have the last word on this.

Listen here to its call: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Marbled_Murrelet/sounds