The federal Bureau of Land Management plans to auction off almost 500 acres of forestland on Thursday to log dead or dying trees. But, one conservationist says many of the trees are actually healthy. The Boaz and Forest Creek timber sales in the Applegate Valley are meant to harvest Douglas fir trees impacted by recent outbreaks of invasive beetles and drought. The Medford BLM said trees were marked for removal based on criteria developed with Oregon State University scientists to identify which trees are dead or dying. But Luke Ruediger, executive director of the Applegate Siskiyou Alliance, said a number of the areas proposed for logging don’t meet the BLM’s criteria for dead and dying trees. “The BLM is clearly manipulating the public’s concern around beetles to implement clearcut logging in previously controversial stands that have been opposed by the public,” Ruediger said.