SEELEY LAKE – Commercial morel harvest season ended on the Rice Ridge Fire July 7. Seeley Lake District Ranger Rachel Feigley said the season went well with significantly more personal and incidental pickers than commercial pickers in the area.
Feigley said the area designated for commercial picking was based on input received from the community. It was limited to the area of the fire that burned west of Richmond Ridge Road, Forest Road #4353.
“Community members were interested in a post-fire economic recovery based on recreation tourism and did not think the commercial harvest would add to that segment of the local economy,” wrote Feigley in an email. “Others wanted the opportunity to pick mushrooms on a personal permit or incidental basis.”
The District identified the Westside Bypass Trailhead as the designated commercial camping area. As part of the commercial permit, commercial mushroom pickers were required to camp at this location. The District provided port-a-potties and bear-resistant dumpsters. Fires were not allowed in the area.
“As it turned out, the camp was used very little,” wrote Feigley who added there were many personal mushroom pickers coming to Seeley Lake for the day to pick.
The District sold 39 commercial permits and had two commercial buyers in the area servicing commercial harvest.
“There may have been a number of factors that contributed to the amount of commercial pickers,” wrote Feigley. “The [limited] size of the commercial area may have been one but also contributing was the low price of mushrooms due to large supply regionally.”
Federal Law Enforcement Officer Tyler Robinson said pickers from outside of the United States came from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and Cambodia.
Robinson said the single biggest issue was commercial pickers harvesting in the personal use area. While pickers could be fined, Robinson only issued warnings and educated those about where they could legally pick.
The second biggest issue was people picking with an incidental or personal-use permit and selling them commercially. Again Robinson didn’t write any citations.
Recently Robinson said they have had complaints of pickers and people camping on the tribal lands of the Liberty Fire.
“These are sacred lands,” said Robinson who added picking on the reservation is reserved for tribal members only and accessing state, The Nature Conservancy or Forest Service lands from the reservation side is trespassing. “We don’t have a commercial program on the Liberty Fire. You can not legally commercially pick on Forest Lands on the Liberty Fire.”
Last week two individuals on ATVs were held at knifepoint until law enforcement arrived because they had mushrooms that were believed to have come off tribal land. The ATV riders were fined for off-roading and were given a warning for being on a closed road due to a wash out. Robinson later found out one of the riders was a buyer from Washington who was purchasing mushrooms from pickers coming off the fire. The case has been turned over to the tribe.
Robinson only issued one warning for drugs when a picker was caught smoking a joint. He also escorted a few scouts to a new camping location after he found them camped at Big Larch boat launch. No citations were written.
“It didn’t turn into as big of a thing as we anticipated,” said Robinson. “There were just so many other fires and I know with interstate access, other fires were much easier to access.”
Feigley wrote, “Based on what I heard from [Robinson], our front office staff and the general public, I think it was the right decision to balance commercial use with personal use and separate that from the recreation tourism economy that is most important to the community of Seeley Lake.”
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