Always on the lookout for efforts by the mainstream media to investigate and report on news and events in forests and the forest products industry, the alert Timber Harvesting staff recently came across this description of logging in the Denver Post newspaper: “. . .hulking red and yellow tractors equipped with whirling hot saws sliced through 12-in. trunks of the towering pines, then as they thumped to the ground raked them into bunches. Delimbers stripped off branches. Hooked pinchers hoisted the logs into bus-sized loads for diesel-belching trucks. Drivers hauled these along icy mountain roads to sawmills at Saratoga and Parshall, where workers convert logs to lumber. . .”
Though the piece included a quote from the Wilderness Society that industry was taking advantage of forest health issues to promote logging, the article overall was very evenhanded and net positive for the forest industry in general and the importance of active, responsible management for forest health. This is especially important as Colorado reels from the three largest fires in state history that burned in 2020, and state officials have identified 5 million acres in the state affected by beetle outbreaks following years of drought.
It’s important to remember the media doesn’t always have a full-blown agenda, and while many reporters want to get the story right and accurately record your quotes and insights in context, they are mostly woefully uneducated about forestry issues and logging, so be patient with them. Refer them to your logging association or state forestry officials if they need more information or help. It’s always fun to make fun, though: Don’t see too many rakes on logging jobs, hooked pinchers is a mighty fancy name for grapples, and maybe it’s the folks who don’t get out much who think 12 in. pines “tower.” But they’re trying, and it was a good article.