‘Smokey the Bear’ Has a Bone to Pick

SAN FRANCISCO — A protester dressed as Smokey the Bear, firefighting symbol of the U.S. Forest Service, tried to turn in a “resignation” Thursday at a lively but peaceful demonstration in observance of the 150th birthday of revered environmentalist John Muir.

“Smokey offered the resignation but we didn’t accept it,” deadpanned Hal Salwasser, acting deputy forester for the service’s western region, after a 25-minute conference with bear-costumed protester David Barron.

Five uniformed officers of the Federal Protective Service, which guards U.S. government buildings, were stationed at entrance doors to regional offices of the Forest Service as about 150 protesters marched and chanted. There was no trouble.

At the same time, similar demonstrations were taking place at Sequoia National Forest headquarters in Porterville and at the Forest Service headquarters of Six Rivers National Forest in Eureka.

In downtown Los Angeles, about two dozen Earth First demonstrators marked the Muir sesquicentennial with a performance-protest in front of the Federal Building. Demonstrators dressed as trees staged a mock deforestation, and flyers were handed out to passers-by.

The California demonstrations were part of a series of similar actions throughout the country Thursday, which was proclaimed a “national day of outrage” at forest policies.

In Muir’s name, demonstrators protested logging and road-building on the Forest Service’s 191 million acres throughout the nation and especially the agency’s 20 million acres in California--a fifth of the state.

John Muir, explorer, naturalist, writer and inventor, spent much of his life campaigning for conservation in the United States. His efforts influenced Congress to pass the Yosemite National Park Act in 1890. In 1892, he founded the Sierra Club.

The Forest Service calls logging “harvesting,” part of a program of “intelligent and sound land management.”