March 31, 2003

Help Keep The Medicine Bow WILD!

With your help, the public can seize a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the Medicine Bow National Forest.

The Place: The Medicine Bow National Forest, located in southeastern Wyoming, is a land of sparkling waterways and awe-inspiring peaks, a region of spectacular natural beauty and diversity of life. This forest is home to numerous rare and disappearing animals like the northern goshawk, pine marten, boreal toad, and mountain lion. It is also a favorite place for hundreds of thousands of people to hike, fish, watch wildlife, camp, hunt, and otherwise connect with nature every year.

The Problem: In the past few years, off-road vehicles have become a major problem on the Medicine Bow National Forest. Snowmobiling has dramatically increased on the Medicine Bow - more than doubling in the Snowy Range area alone. Making the problem worse, the Forest Service has never taken any meaningful steps to address this snowmobile crisis, allowing snowmobiles to travel off-road almost everywhere across the forest.

Due to the noise, smell, and unsafe conditions caused by snowmobiles on the Medicine Bow, many non-motorized recreationists have been driven off the Medicine Bow in the winter.

Even more worrisome, snowmobiles are a major environmental threat on the Medicine Bow - stressing wintering animals, damaging fragile tundra, and potentially contributing to the forest's recent loss of lynx and white-tailed ptarmigan.

And off-road vehicles often damage the Medicine Bow's summertime environment as well. Every year, wetlands are destroyed by four-wheel drive vehicles - threatening the continued existence of increasingly rare animals like the northern leopard frog and the Prebles meadow jumping mouse.

YOU Can Help Save the Medicine Bow!

Right now, the Forest Service is choosing a new management plan for the Medicine Bow, which provides all people who care about this forest an extremely rare opportunity to protect what makes it special. In this process, the agency is considering a citizens' conservation plan, called Keep the Medicine Bow WILD, among other possible forest plans. If selected, the citizens' plan will protect the Medicine Bow's ancient forests, snow covered slopes, and fragile wetlands - along with quiet recreational opportunities - by keeping all motorized vehicles on roads.

Unfortunately, the Forest Service, especially under the anti-environmental Bush Administration, is unable to appreciate the tremendous worth of wild nature on the Medicine Bow and will not select the citizens' conservation plan without a strong outpouring of popular support. Please take a moment to join this outpouring by writing a short letter asking the agency to adopt the Keep the Medicine Bow WILD plan. Your time, energy, thoughts, and concern - when combined with that of thousands of others - will make a huge difference.

Send comments by April 4, 2003. In your letter, please tell the Forest Service to:

  • Keep all motorized vehicles to designated roads. The Forest Service should protect non-motorized recreational opportunities, along with the environment, by keeping all snowmobiles to Forest Service designated roads except designated play areas.
  • Close all user-created roads. Every year, new roads are pioneered across the Medicine Bow by off-road vehicles' often - times travel through or immediately along side riparian areas or wetlands. All such roads should be closed immediately. This may keep snowmobiles out of new areas.
  • Build no more new roads. There are already 3,000 miles of roads on the Medicine Bow, which is more than enough mileage to travel from New York to San Francisco. This will also keep snowmobiles from intensifying their use of the forest. The Forest Service should build no more roads.
  • Protect all roadless areas on the forest as wilderness. Many wildlands, like the Vedauwoo, La Bonte Canyon, and Illinois Creek roadless areas are damaged every year by off-road vehicle use. These areas should be formally put off limits to motorized travel through the designation of wilderness.

Thank you for taking the time to save this amazing forest.

Please send your letter by April 4 to:

Medicine Bow / Routt National Forests
Attn. Draft Forest Plan Revision Comments
2468 Jackson St.
Laramie WY 82070

Or by email to:
R2_mbr_mb_revision@fs.fed.us

Or by fax to:
(307)745-2398

Be sure to include your snail mail address with any comments sent in. This information is crucial.

If you would like more information, please go to www.voiceforthewild.org or call Eric Bonds at (307)742-7978.