Seriously, your going to write about others ignorance and write this propaganda? First when I think about all the forest dwelling animals that rely on trees for a food source and shelter, I have a hard time believing "70 percent of forest wildlife species benefit" from clear cutting timber, if you really have some literature to that effect please post it and I will study it with an open mind. As for grouse and whipper wills all I know is while growing up in the 70's and 80's they were both plentiful in my area and we had vast stands of mature timber. It seems back then people cared about their forests and the appearance of them more, whereas now all they care about is the dollar they can get from them. Now there is vast areas around me of small trees, underbrush and briars, but no grouse and it is rare to hear a whipper will, so it sure doesn't seem to me they benefited from the harvests. "What food are deer going to eat in a closed canopy forest?" Well there you go, I agree clear cuts help deer and deer is all 90 percent of the people on here care about, but deer sure like acorns too. I am not at all anti logging. In fact I have taken John Siefert's course on timber management and have done TSI and selective cutting on my own property, but I refuse to cut everything for the dollar and kill off the den trees and all the grape vines wildlife need to feed on and I don't think the DNR should take that approach either. One thing Mr. Siefert opened my eyes to is what grows back in clear cut areas-it is NOT oak. Clear cut an oak ridge and it is gone forever because the poplar will blow past them and smother them out. Not sure why this is different now than when the oak ridges came into existence, but it is! I am not saying the DNR should not do selective timber harvests, they should, but I have seen first hand the increase in cutting going on right now and yes several clear cuts on DNR land and I agree it is alarming and alarming to see all the campaign contributions from those getting the contracts=hmm, I think we need to slow down a bit and leave some of those nice mature forests for future generations to enjoy like we did growing up.