Fishers, wolverines and bobcats live in the forested valleys and alpine crests of the Kettle Range. Wilderness protection would allow these species to continue to thrive and encourage repopulation by grizzly bears and wolves.
Logging, mining and roadbuilding activity are the greatest threats facing the area. A huge 60 million-board-feet timber sale, called the Garden Taco Timber Sale, has been proposed in the forest. And grizzly, wolf, lynx and bull trout would all be affected by a U.S. Forest Service proposal to pay for logging roads into a private inholding of Stimson Lumber.
Photo courtesy Kettle Range Conservation Group. |
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At the time of Lewis and Clark, and for eons before them, native people gathered at Kettle Falls to fish for salmon, dry racks of fish for winter use and celebrate the bounteous return of these splendid wile fish to their spawning grounds. Today, the salmon are gone, and protection is a dire need of the big cats, black bears and wolverines of the Kettle Range.
