Protect McLaughlin Ridge! Please take 5 minutes to write a quick email!

* See a new YOUTUBE clip (1 minute) about McLaughlin Ridge at:

Conservationists are calling on the BC government to protect a 500 hectare tract of ancient Douglas fir forest near Port Alberni that biologists have classified as both critical habitat for wintering deer and nesting endangered Queen Charlotte goshawks. Conservationists would like the BC government to purchase the old-growth forest on private land on McLaughlin Ridge from Island Timberlands.

The land was formerly intended for protection as an Ungulate Winter Range (UWR) for black-tailed deer and as a Wildlife Habitat Area (WHA) for the endangered goshawk until 2004 when the BC Liberal government removed 88,000 hectares of land now owned by Island Timberlands from their Tree Farm Licenses (TFL’s), thus removing most existing environmental protections on those lands and exempting the area from other planned protections.   Island Timberlands began logging the 500 hectare tract of old-growth forest a year ago, clearcutting 100 hectares or more from both sides of the Grove, while about 400 hectares of the core area still remains – for now.

***Note: We don’t want to get any “bah humbug” complaints about how deer eat your garden veggies and are common in Victoria! On Vancouver Island as a whole, deer populations have plummeted from over 200,000 in the 1970’s to less than 60,000 animals today. These are not urban deer that live by the coast without snow – these are deer that live in the interior mountains of Vancouver Island at higher elevations where there is over 10 feet of snow and no garden veggies! The old-growth forests in such regions provide both shelter and food (in the form of lichens) – but most of their wintering habitat at such elevations have been logged now.

See more details on the Ancient Forest Alliance’s press release at:

See the Alberni Valley Times article “Critics Insist Logging Harms Wildlife” at:

PLEASE take 5 minutes and WRITE a Letter to Minister of Forests Steve Thomson at: steve.thomson.mla@leg.bc.ca

and Minister of the Environment Terry Lake at: terry.lake.mla@leg.bc.ca

telling them:

– McLaughlin Ridge has the largest and highest quality wintering range for black-tailed deer on southern Vancouver Island

– It is vital habitat for the endangered Queen Charlotte goshawk on southern Vancouver Island

– It is part of the last 1% of old-growth Douglas firs on BC’s coast

– The old-growth forests there were formerly intended for protection from logging as an Ungulate Winter Range and Wildlife Habitat Area until the BC government removed the Tree Farm License (TFL 44) from these lands in 2004, thereby exempting the area from these planned environmental protections.

– Therefore the BC government must remedy this situation by protecting these areas that were formerly intended to become off-limits to logging by buying them – with a high priority going to McLaughlin Ridge.

Thank you!