The process was expedited when President George W. Bush signed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act allowing salvage logging to occur more quickly and with reduced threat of lawsuits.
[7] Forests across western North America impacted by mountain pine beetle infestations were salvage logged.
[10][11] Concerns include simplification of forest structure,[9] degradation and destruction of wildlife habitat,[12] little or no impact to future fire risk, changes in nutrient cycling, and increased erosion.
[9] As a part of adaptive management strategies designed to meet objectives in long term forestry planning, e.g. the Northwest Forest Plan,[13] among other actions, salvage logging operations generally take the large snags and surviving trees, leaving lower density stands dominated by small-diameter snags.
[14] Bird species diversity can be negatively impacted by this structural change because cavity nesters preferentially nest in larger trees.