The Forest History Society

The Forest History Society is a nonprofit library and archive dedicated to collecting, preserving, and disseminating forest and conservation history for all to use. The Society links the past to the future while reminding us about our important forest heritage.

The Forest History Society (FHS) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit educational institution located in Durham, North Carolina, that links the past to the future by identifying, collecting, preserving, interpreting, and disseminating information on the history of interactions between people, forests, and their related resources -- timber, water, soil, forage, fish and wildlife, recreation, and scenic or spiritual values. Through programs in research, publication, and education, the Society promotes and rewards scholarship in the fields of forest, conservation, and environmental history while reminding all of us about our important forest heritage.
(The above is a direct quote from the FHS website.  The site also features a search of their archives, with quite a few items about the Mount Hood National Forest.  It is certainly worth a look-see as we while away the winter.)

The website:
http://www.foresthistory.org/index.html

Unidentified ranger looks northeast from Oakgrove Butte Lookout in the Mt. Hood National Forest, Oregon with Mt. Hood in the distance

1910, Mt. Hood National Forest fire team

Clackamas River Bull Trout - A Reintroduction

They were once here, but now are just a memory.  The 20th century was hell on wild creatures, with fish and amphibians being especially hard-hit.  Development is never positive from the eyes of a fish.

The bull trout was once found throughout the Columbia River Basin, east to western Montana, south to northern Nevada, west to California and possibly as far north as southeastern Alaska. The main populations remaining in the lower 48 states are in Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, with a small population in northern Nevada. The bull trout has small, pale yellow-to-crimson spots on a darker background, fading to white on the belly.
Western Native Trout Initiative

In 2007 the US Forest Service completed a feasibility study about the reintroduction of Bull Trout into the Clackamas River.
http://www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/Species/Data/BullTrout/Documents/Clackamas%20River%20Bull%20Trout%20Reintroduction%20Feasibility%20Assessment.pdf

Happily, the reintroduction began in 2011:

Reintroduction Final Rule

On June 21, 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in cooperation with the State of Oregon, USDA Forest Service and other project partners, published a final rule in the Federal Register to establish a nonessential experimental population (NEP) of bull trout in the Clackamas River and its tributaries in Clackamas County, Oregon, under section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The geographic boundaries of the NEP would include the entire Clackamas River subbasin as well as the mainstem Willamette River, from Willamette Falls to its points of confluence with the Columbia River, including Multnomah Channel. Based on findings from the 2007 Clackamas Bull Trout Reintroduction Feasibility Assessment, we believe a reintroduction of bull trout to the Clackamas River subbasin is biologically feasible and will promote the recovery of the species. The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, along with our project partners, plan to begin translocating multiple life stages of bull trout from the Metolius River to the Clackamas River in July 2011.

http://www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/Species/Data/BullTrout/ReintroductionProject.asp

Will it work?  Will they come back?  Are healthy ecosystems even possible with so much fragmentation?
Our descendants will have to tell us.