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The first portion of the "Deer North Vegetation Management Project" or should we just call it what it actually is a "timber sale". This is a Medford District BLM Northwest Forest Plan project.  We suppose they are calling this timber sale a "vegetation managment project" so the BLM can attempt to squeeze through a loophole that the courts left open so the BLM can allegedly avoid protecting the red tree vole with the mandated buffers under the Survey and Manage Provisions of the Northwest Forest Plan. The good old boys at the BLM are slick aren't they.

The first auctioned portion of the "Deer North Vegetation Managment Project" was awarded to the Murphy Lumber Co. in 2011.  It is about 98 acres of the most mature and highest value trees in the whole project. However, one 18 acre unit was logged in early 2013. (see picture below.)

To download a map of the whole 750 acre Deer North "Vegetation Management Project" (timber sale), go to file attachement at the bottom of this page.

The Deer Creek Association has filed suit but they do not currently have an injuction to stop the logging of the timber sale.

In 2010, the all vounteer Northwest Ecosystem Survey Team (NEST) surveyed the Deer North "Vegetation Management" timber sale units for the presence of the red tree vole. NEST found no less than 12 new nests inside the proposed units. Even though NEST and Deer Creek Association turned over the new red tree vole data to the Medford BLM before the Record of Decision was made, the BLM has failed to protect these new active red tree vole nest sites with the required 10 acre buffer under the Survey and Manage Provisions of the Northwest Forest Plan.