Audubon joined other conservation partners to appeal a Federal District Court decision allowing the Big Thorne timber sale on the Tongass National Forest to move forward. Audubon also requested an injunction halting the logging of some of the Tongass National Forest's most important old-growth trees.

Jim Adams, Audubon Alaska's Policy Director, said, "We're fighting to save this majestic forest and national treasure. Ending the clear-cutting of seven- and eight-hundred-year old trees is a no brainer. The science tells us large-scale old-growth logging in the Tongass is a very bad idea for wildlife and birds. Common sense tells us it is a very bad idea for taxpayers' whose hard-earned dollars are paying for the destruction of the Tongass."

The Big Thorne timber sale calls for the clearcutting of more than 6,000 acres—9 square miles!—of old-growth rainforest in a portion of the Tongass already devastated by sixty years of logging. Southeast Alaska's leading wolf expert has said the loss of these centuries-old trees may be "the straw that breaks the camel's back" and could ultimately destroy a third of the Tongass wolf population. Logging in this area would also degrade the already limited habitat on which the Queen Charlotte Northern Goshawk (only about 700 breeding pairs remain) depends.

To add insult to injury, the Big Thorne sale is likely to cost American taxpayers more than $100 million in subsidies over the next five years.