Fishing and hunting groups say a Bush administration plan to expand logging on 2.5 million acres in western Oregon could harm fish and prized big game such as Roosevelt elk, blacktail deer and black bear.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plan, open for public comment through Friday, would increase clear-cutting on BLM land, reduce wildlife habitat, allow more all-terrain vehicle use and road construction and decrease stream protection, the angler and hunting groups say.

The plan provides too few alternatives for stream and wildlife protection, and for the types of logging that could occur, they say.

Bob Gerding, a hunter and angler whose family owns 300 acres of forestland outside Philomath, describes the BLM plans as "large-scale clear-cutting."

"There has to be a happy medium," he said. "You can go in and thin a forest, increase the yield and still preserve habitat."

Eight groups issued a statement last week voicing their concerns, including Trout Unlimited, the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association and the Oregon Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. The Oregon Hunters Association did not join in the statement but sent a separate letter to the BLM asking the agency to take into account effects on wildlife other than endangered species.

Allowable logging, sharply cut back under the Clinton administration's 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, would nearly triple under the BLM's plan.

Agency officials acknowledge that stream buffers -- the area around the water where logging isn't allowed -- would diminish. But the BLM's analysis indicates that the effects on endangered fish and wildlife -- including salmon and the northern spotted owl -- would be minimal, said Dick Prather, manager for the Western Oregon Plan Revisions project.

The BLM land runs in a checkerboard pattern throughout much of western Oregon, interspersed with private lands that often have roads and logging already, Prather said. "It isn't like this is Forest Service land and there's a huge block that's going to be roaded."

The new plan gives logging a higher priority than on national forestlands. Most of the land involved falls into a unique class of acreage known as O&C lands that are intended for "permanent forest production." The BLM hopes to issue a final plan by August.

Timber industry officials and county leaders said it will bring badly needed federal money to rural counties and thwart challenges to logging projects that have helped keep logging on BLM forests far below Clinton-era projections.

Allowable timber production could rise from 268 million board feet a year now to 727 million board feet. About half the increase in available acreage would come from trees 80 years or older. Opponents say such mature trees are essential for wildlife cover and winter forage.

Streamside buffer zones can be as wide as 360 feet now, and fishing groups say the protections are clearly working. Under the revised plan, the zone would drop to 100 feet, with logging allowed as close as 25 feet from fish-bearing streams and potentially closer.