There has been a great deal of dust kicked up over the last couple of weeks about the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to cease the use of the venerable and historic logo of the U.S. Forest Service and replace it with the rather drab and uninspiring USDA logo. The plan was to replace all of the logos throughout the USDA with the USDA logo, not just the Forest Service’s.

We heard from a reliable source today that the Secretary of Agriculture’s office is going to make an exception for the USFS, and allow them to continue using the familiar badge with the pine tree. This is more or less consistent with a Twitter message that the official USFS Twitter account sent out this morning:

There’s been alot of Twitter talk about our logo going away…stay tuned because it is not a done deal yet. We’ll keep you posted.

— USDA Forest Service (@forestservice) April 4, 2013

But, we’ll have to wait and see if the Secretary’s office follows through and actually gives the USFS logo a reprieve. Secretary Tom Vilsack probably had no idea trashing the USFS logo would create such a s**tstorm.

UPDATE at 4:55 p.m. MT, April 5, 2013:

In a comment, B.Morgan asked, “Does anyone have a picture to post of the Forest Service patch with the rounded top, pre-1970s?” Dick Mangan was kind enough to send along the photo below. Like Dick said in another comment, over those old patches, there was a narrow band of a patch that wrapped over the top of the larger patch. It had the name of the national forest where the wearer worked. Dick explained that the smaller patch in the photo was for the female uniform.