LETTER: SHAWNEE LOGGING IS COSTLY TO TAXPAYERS

To the editor:

The Missourian's April 19 editorial on the issue of logging in the Shawnee National Forest hit a low point in logic. To my knowledge, no environmental group has suggested banning hiking or outlawing farms. The real issue is twofold. First, as Mike Murphy pointed out in a previous letter, The Shawnee logging is carried out at a major financial loss to me, you and every other American taxpayer. We taxpayers are already giving our entire income from Jan. 1 through May 6 for taxes, and we expect our money to be spent carefully. We don't mind paying to protect our freedom from aggressors, to educate our children or to feed the hungry. But we aren't happy to have our wages taken away to subsidize a lumber mill or any other private company in using up public resources at below-market rates. In our free-market economy, I expect these businesses to survive without money from my paycheck.

Second, there is a real issue concerning survival in the Shawnee, and the Missourian has failed to present the facts of the case. According to Illinois Natural History Survey studies, as many as 90 percent of the wood thrush nests in the Shawnee are parasitized by cowbirds. This means that most of the wood thrush don't survive. A similar situation exists with respect to other songbirds which live in the forest interior. Cowbirds can access these nests only when logging has left open areas throughout the forest. Logging can be conducted in ways which don't seriously fragment the forest and allow cowbirds entry points, but these practices haven't been used in the Shawnee. This logging style is wasteful.

As a taxpaying citizen, I object to having my taxes subsidize logging operations that lose money. When the same losing operations are also killing off some of our loveliest native birds, the idea becomes doubly offensive. I urge every citizen to write to the Senate Small Business Committee, 428A Russell Senate Building, Washington, D.C., 20510, to protest this squandering of our money.

IDA L. DOMAZLICKY

Cape Girardeau