Leaderboard

^^ No it's not!!

I was out bigfooting last week and just waded through way too many pages. Actually Drew, I made no such statement. What I said exactly was "By 1908, the Forest Preserve that would become the Ouachita National Forest was established and protecting lands from over harvest." I never stated that included or excluded the Oklahoma side, because frankly the sources that I read didn't indicate one way or another. However, I don't really think it matters if the Arkansas side was protected before the Oklahoma side, cause I'm pretty sure wood apes don't know state borders. Point was - by 1908, a very large portion of the Ouachita Mountains were being regulated from over harvest very near, if not including, Area X. Further, I heard from some folks from the Historic Society that I emailed and they verified what Painthorse already said - eastern OK was never even 50% clearcut. In fact, they noted that there is still roughly 14,000 acres of virgin forest in McCurtain County (never been touched) and provided a long list of old growth stands in multiple counties in eastern OK. In case it isn't clear, no one is arguing that logging or other human influences on the land didn't have any affect on all flora and fauna - of course it did. It did so in every state of the Union. However, it is very clear that there was plenty of habitat available in eastern OK (and western AR) for wood apes to survive (likely though in smaller numbers) from when Europeans first arrived to modern day. To continue to argue the point is simply just arguing.

Right. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. MIB