Bohemian Club seeks timber permit

SAN FRANCISCO, July 6 (UPI) -- The Bohemian Club, a prominent men-only club in San Francisco, is asking a California fire board let it cut more timber in the future.

The club's annual retreat to a Sonoma County redwood forest starts this week.

Its management hopes to receive a permit to allow timber cutting over 100 years, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Without this non-industrial timber management plan, the club would have to file a plan for each logging operation and the government would oversee all tree cutting, the report said. The state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection is currently reviewing the permit.

Environmental groups claim the Russian River forest can't support all of the cutting the club proposes, 1.7 million board-feet over 50 years. The forest, the largest stand of redwoods near San Francisco, is habitat for the marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl and the river is home to coho salmon and steelhead.