When timber companies were timber companies, big game had a home in the lowland forests of Washington’s central Cascade Mountains. But these days growing houses racks up far bigger profits than growing trees. Small wonder with thousands of well-heeled folks spilling out the I-90 corridor from Seattle looking for elbow room and their private piece of recreation heaven. It’s hard to find a timber company anymore that hasn’t become first and foremost a real estate investment trust (REIT).
For more than a century, private timber company land on the east slope of the Cascades was free-range for wildlife and open to public access. But now the for-sale signs are going up, and they don’t stay up long. With prime habitat being sold, fragmented, gated and locked up, the state’s largest elk herd was on a collision course with humanity. Then hunters and conservationists banded together to help pull off a land deal of historic proportions.
In November 2007, after years of negotiations, public meetings and appraisals, the Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) gained approval to trade scattered state sections in 15 counties, many of which were locked up by private property, in return for a chunk of private-timberland elk habitat four times greater than the state lands exchanged. The values go beyond the scope of bake sales and raffles: DNR traded 20,970 acres appraised at $56.55 million for 82,548 acres of Western Pacific Timber land of just slightly higher value. For wildlife and those who spend much of the year dreaming of elk camp, this land was both priceless and irreplaceable.
“I’ve seen the trend, and the impacts of industrial timberland being developed into 80‑acre lots are horrifying,” said George Shelton, DNR’s assistant regional manager in Ellensburg. “I’m saying that from a hunter’s point of view and from a timber manager’s point of view.”
Washington’s largest elk herd, more than 13,000 strong, roams the east slope of the Cascade Mountains. Much of their habitat exists on a patchwork ownership of state and private timberlands that tend to lie in the lower‑elevations just below national forest lands.
The Elk Foundation spearheaded a drive to build support for a land deal that would secure this patchwork of property into one mass—protecting habitat and ensuring public access forever.
As a carrot to prospective developers and timber companies in the 19th century, offering up every other square‑mile section of land in a “checkerboard” pattern was an irresistible incentive. For 21st century developers, nothing much has changed.
Before the negotiations for the land exchanges, most of WPT’s 200,000 acres in Washington—primarily in checkerboard-pattern ownership mixed in with state and federal lands in the central Cascades—were being managed for timber production. But the land had changed ownership three times in less than three years—a sure sign that the latest owner had other options in mind.
WPT owner Tim Blixseth has made a fortune buying, selling, swapping and developing timberlands in the West, and it was clear that many of these sections between Yakima and Ellensburg were ripe for sale and subdivision.
“Checkerboard ownership worked well when our neighbors were large timber companies,” said Shelton, who’s worked 33 years for DNR. “But with investment firms buying the land, there’s no uncertainty about what’s going to happen to the land sooner or later. The only way to make sure the state has working forests 80 years from now is to block up our holdings.”
To use the checkerboard analogy, imagine every other section on the map is privately owned timberland. Those are red. Through these exchanges, the Elk Foundation and the state painted them all black, forming massive unbroken expanses of public land.
Protecting these swaths of land guarantees that elk, mule deer and bighorns have open corridors from summer range in the high Cascades to winter range closer to the river bottoms near Yakima, Ellensburg and Wenatchee. The huge blocks of public land also ensure a treasury of public hunting grounds.
“A lot was at stake in these exchanges,” said Jeff Tayer, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Yakima Region director. “DNR was prepared to pull out. If the negotiations between DNR and Western Pacific were to go the wrong way, public access and big game migration routes were poised to be disrupted over 80,000 acres, and neighboring public lands would have been impacted as well.”
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With names like Yakima, Naches and Tieton echoing the area’s deep Native American roots, the clear and cold rivers that tumble from the high peaks of the Cascades are scenic havens for wildlife and an irresistible draw to developers. Applications for subdivision parcels nearly doubled in Kittitas County in a three-year period from 2002 to 2005. (Photo by Terry Donnelly) |
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And when Tayer says the DNR was prepared to pull out, he means it was crunch time, down to all or nothing. Department officials were poised to sell all their lands east of the mountains. They would take all their marbles and move west, expanding and consolidating their holdings on the Pacific side of the Cascades. Instead, they’re on the east slope to stay.
Tayer went on to point out that anybody who buys a parcel in the middle of big-game winter range has a right to build a road for private access. And a landowner who buys property bordered by public land can preclude public access.
“That marginalizes the value of the winter range,” he said. “The Yakima elk herd is pretty healthy primarily because their life-history needs are being met, from summer range to migration routes to winter range. The Colockum area is a different story. There’s already a lot of land conversion in Kittitas County and a lot more fragmentation is possible. Getting as much consolidation as possible is critical to those elk.”
Getting sportsmen behind this massive project was critical, too.
Rance Block, Elk Foundation East Slope Cascades Conservation Initiative program manager at the time, organized RMEF members and other sportsmen’s groups to quickly raise $200,000 to help the DNR with land appraisals and other prerequisites for the proposed land exchanges.
“Public agencies have trouble moving fast enough when dealing with private developers,” Block explained. “But the situation demanded more than just money.”
The DNR needed public support to get the land exchanges approved by the State Board of Natural Resources. Initial reaction to the proposed exchanges was far from universally positive. DNR had to identify parcels scattered in 15 counties to exchange for Western Pacific lands that would enable the agency to block up its holdings on the east slope of the Cascades. Many of those scattered parcels had a local following.
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Elk follow spring’s greenup from the low canyons high into the skyscraping peaks of the Cascades. Along the way they rely on state and private timberlands, many of which are now secured, thanks to recent acquisitions and land exchanges. (Photo by Terry Donnelly) |
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An Asotin County rancher who’s leased a DNR section for his cattle may not see the value in the state trading that land to a developer in order to block up DNR lands 200 miles away. Ditto for an eastern Washington hunter who’s killed a deer the last three years on a DNR section proposed for exchange in Stevens County.
“We really wanted to go out with the story that this is an exchange, and we have to give up something,” Block said. “We went through a huge effort, mailing about 20,000 pamphlets to our members and members of the Mule Deer Foundation and the National Wild Turkey Federation. We handed out material at sportsmen’s shows and tried to show people the big picture.
“What we would gain,” he emphasized, “would be worth far more than what we would give up.”
More important, what would be lost if the exchanges fell through could never be replaced.
“The hardest sell was in Klickitat County, which had to give up the most public land to make this happen,” Block said.
About 13,000 acres of DNR land in the county was traded to private ownership. “A lot of those public lands had no public access,” Block said. “When people realized that, they began to see the big picture.”
One who helped make the difference was Bill Essman, retired wildlife enforcement officer and a longtime member of both the Elk Foundation and the Kittitas County Field & Stream Club.
“This was really crucial,” said Essman, who can look at some of the land exchange area three miles as the crow flies from his Ellensburg home. “There was a proposal for a tram from the bottom of the Naneum (prime elk habitat) to Mission Ridge Ski Area, as well as a plan for a paved winter road to the ski resort. We can’t afford any more development like that through the middle of an elk area.
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(Photo by James Jones) |
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“People keep building up farther in the foothills and the habitat keeps disappearing,” Essman said. In Kittitas County alone, applications for subdivision parcels grew from 1,000 in 2002 to 1,800 in 2005, and county officials say development continues to grow as Microsoft and Google move operations to nearby Quincy.
While the impacts of development in elk range may be lost on the public sequestered in cities, they were hitting close to home for Essman and his fellow members in the Kittitas County Field & Stream Club.
“About 90 percent of the elk hunters in the club go after elk in the Naneum and Colockum areas,” he said. “When we heard what the Elk Foundation was trying to do, our club rallied.”
Along with the $200,000 and hundreds of man-hours contributed from the Elk Foundation, a consortium of other groups saw the value of the exchange as well. The Mule Deer Foundation (MDF) put $50,000 toward the effort, and the National Wild Turkey Federation, $11,000. Along with the Inland Northwest Wildlife Council, these groups were also active in the public comment process.
“It was simply the right, and natural thing to do,” says Mike Jones, Washington state chair for MDF. An equal number of mule deer to elk were going to be impacted had the land exchanges not succeeded. Partnering up with the other conservation organizations means we are united in efforts to preserve and protect habitat for the animals we choose to represent. As Benjamin Franklin said when the colonies were declaring their independence: ‘We must all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately.’”
The campaign worked, turning an atmosphere of skepticism into an overwhelming 95 percent approval in the public responses to the land exchanges.
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Thanks to ambitious partnerships and a never-say-die attitude, both elk and public access in the east slope of Washington’s Cascades are on course to a bright future. Every new success is reason to celebrate. But with thousands of acres still hanging in the balance, work begins immediately on the next project. (Photo by James Jones) |
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“It’s happening all over, but in 2002 we had to take action on the potential for subdivisions on Plum Creek (Timber Co.) lands in the Ahtanum west of Yakima,” said the DNR’s Shelton. “We realized we either had to block up our land to be commercially viable or sell our land in the checkerboard pattern and consolidate elsewhere.
“That was our first big project. We blocked up about 14,000 acres in the Ahtanum, but if the Elk Foundation had not come up with the $50,000 we needed immediately to help cover the costs for appraisals and other things, it wouldn’t have happened.
“That was the start of a relationship that’s worked well for both of us ever since.”
And although the Elk Foundation has helped consolidate about 104,000 acres of state DNR and Department of Fish and Wildlife land on the east slope of the Cascades since 2004, there’s much more to do.
DNR also is negotiating more land exchanges west of Yakima, involving about 4,400 acres with the Ahtanum Irrigation District. In another deal, negotiations have so far failed to secure 8,900 acres in checkerboard ownership with Shawn Monte Timber Company near Yakima, but further talks are pending.
And, of course, the newly acquired land will need some attention. The partnerships formed to support the most recent land exchanges will be tapped to help map out roads and travel plans on the new big blocks of public land. They’ll also work to identify stewardship concerns and goals, and seek funding to ensure these lands are managed for their highest potential as wildlife habitat.
"DNR is looking at updating and upgrading the road system now that they own all of the land,” said Essman, adding that Shelton and other DNR officials have met with local groups, including RMEF members and the Kittitas sportsmen’s club for input. “We’ll have a system to make it clear where you can drive and where you can’t, with a lot of consideration to what deer and elk need.”
Shelton said, “We prefer to keep our roads open. But we’ll be putting up gates to protect some places, such as prime elk calving areas.”
He added that the DNR didn’t always have a reputation of working so closely with hunters or conservation groups.
“My view of the Elk Foundation has changed so much, starting with the Ahtanum acquisition, then with volunteer projects to enhance aspen groves and volunteers approaching us with other good proposals,” Shelton said.
“I used to think the Elk Foundation was just a bunch of hunters who killed elk. Now I see them as conservationists with unlimited energy looking at the long term.”
These exchanges have given the Yakima and Colockum elk herds room to roam on public habitat through a full four seasons, from the high Cascades and Blewett Pass eastward to the Yakima and Columbia Rivers. As proud as Shelton is of that fact, he says the lessons learned were equally important. And that education must continue.
“People have always thought of private timberland as being public land,” Shelton said. “We prevented that loss of public access here, but in other cases, [the public] won’t know the difference until it’s sold to development.”
Some hunters heading into the Yakima and Colockum country 20 Octobers from now may pause and give thanks to all those who saw what was at stake, refused to give up and dared to dream big. The elk of course will never know how close these rich forests came to being a developed mess. Let’s keep it that way.