Lawsuit threatens to change faces of LBL

WHAT?: Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE), based out of Eugene, Oregon, filed a lawsuit in a Paducah, Kentucky, court on June 12 seeking to stop all agricultural practices on Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area and allow fields and open areas to revert to natural forests.

NOTABLES: LBL consists of 170,000 acres. Farming practices, including food plots, are only conducted on some 7,400 acres of the recreation area . . . LBL regulations require that outlying crops harvested be left to feed wildlife throughout the winter months . . . the open "prarie" areas on LBL allow for herds of bison and elk to occupy the area . . . created in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, LBL is a major tourist attraction in northwest Tennessee, drawing thousands of wildlife watchers each year. Open fields on LBL create most of the wildlife-viewing opportunities. More: TnHunting.Com story on the issue.

THE PROBLEM?: Allowing LBL fields to revert to forested areas may improve soil quality in the short-term. However, the practice would extremely detrimental to wildlife populations that inhabit the recreation area. Bison and elk herds that have been introduced to the recreation area would be unable to inhabit LBL. Natural coveys of bobwhite quail would be decimated. The practice would also be detrimental to whitetail deer, wild turkey and small game populations.

ACTION?: Join the Tennessee Wildlife Federation. Submit comments to comments-southern-land-between-lakes@fs.fed.us.

THE LATEST?:The lawsuit was filed on June 12, 2006.

OUR POSITION: The lawsuit should be thrown out of court. Not only are the benefits of eradicating farmland on LBL overstated within the suit by FSEEE, the detrimental effects that the proposal would have on wildlife inhabiting LBL drastically overshadow any benefit to the land as a whole. Furthermore, the proposed practice would destroy the original purpose of LBL, which was to establish a tourist attraction in the region. Without open areas, wildlife viewing becomes obsolete. Without wildlife viewing, tourism becomes obsolete.