Forest

North America’s Forests: page 10

     The Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) may be the most famous resident of these forests.  The struggle over old-growth forests became a bitter controversy focused on the fate of this bird, which was declared a Threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in June 1990.  This owl is native to old-growth forests in northern California, Oregon and Washington, and each pair of owls requires up to 3,200 acres as territory, making it a naturally rare species (Middleton 1992).  Northern Spotted Owls nest in natural tree cavities or holes created when great branches from living trees fall to the ground.  The canopy above shields owlet chicks from the view of large birds of prey that fly above.  These owls feed on the Red Voles, Dusky-footed Wood Rats and Northern Flying Squirrels that are abundant in old-growth forests.  When these forests are cut and young second-growth forest takes over, Spotted Owls disappear (Seideman 1997).  In spite of the protection of portions of their habitat, these owls have not recovered their numbers since listing on the US Endangered Species Act, and they continue to decline.  The US Forest Service released extensive data compiled on the populations of these birds between 1985 and 1993, which showed a drop of 4.5 percent a year, with an accelerating rate of decline (Seideman 1997).  Another threat to these owls is the recent invasion of their habitat by the larger and more adaptable Barred Owl, which is displacing the Spotted Owl in some areas.  Even more ominously, interbreeding has taken place between the two species (Seideman 1997).  

      When the Northern Spotted Owl was listed as Threatened on the Endangered Species Act and large sections of its habitat protected, it became a focal point, polarizing pro-logging and anti-logging advocates.  Owl haters urged others to kill these birds, who were blamed for ending the logging industry. Their cars sported bumper stickers such as "Kill an Owl, Save a Job."  Such venom totally obscured the fact that the forests were being overcut and that logging jobs were destined to be eliminated anyway, as the last old-growth forests disappeared under the saw.  A state in the heart of this owl's range, Oregon, found that reducing logging ended up helping its economy; an influx of technology businesses provided better salaries than those paid for logging jobs (Egan 1994b, Verhovek 2000).  The Governor of the state supported the logging restrictions as helping to maintain the overall quality of life in the state, preventing floods and attracting tourists, which are supplying another large segment of the state's revenues.

      Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs), authorized under the Endangered Species Act may be contributing to the Spotted Owl's decline.  Under these plans, agreements are negotiated with landowners which include a provision known as "no surprises."  This gives landowners assurances that once the regulations on their properties have been agreed to, they are exempt from further restrictions.  Should new populations of an endangered species be discovered on their property, they have no obligation to protect them.  Habitats of Spotted Owls in old-growth forests in Washington State have been bartered away in HCPs that, in the view of Eric Hanson, biologist for the Yakima Indian Nation in Washington state, will end in reducing the state's populations of this species by 35 percent, from 880 breeding pairs to 550 (Seideman 1997).  These HCPs allow habitat destruction and other actions that can result in deaths of Spotted Owls.  The Forest Service collected population data on these owls for the years between 1994 and 1996 but failed to issue the results (Seideman 1997).

      The Clinton Administration sponsored a series of local meetings to resolve differences.  These resulted in plans to federally fund job‑training for loggers who might become unemployed by logging cutbacks.  Even so, logging interests sued the federal government to nullify the stricter quotas, and the California Forest Products Association unsuccessfully petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service in October 1993 to remove the Northern Spotted Owl from the Endangered Species Act, claiming the species was mistakenly placed on the list.  This case was argued all the way to the US Supreme Court which, in the summer of 1995, made a historic decision upholding the Endangered Species Act and its protection of endangered species' habitats. 

      The Timber Salvage Act of 1995 made a mockery of previous attempts to mediate between loggers and conservationists, allowing a year and a half of totally unregulated logging in the habitat of the Northern Spotted Owl and other threatened species.  This law had the stated purpose of taking only fallen and dead trees, but in practice, tens of thousands of old-growth, healthy trees were logged.  In its quarterly report on the Timber Salvage Act, issued February 29, 1996, the Forest Service reported that an astounding 2.1 billion board feet  had been cut since passage of the law.  The Forest Service's stated objective was to sell 4.5 billion board feet by the end of 1996.  By August 1996, some 2.9 billion board feet, the equivalent of 580,000 logging trucks full, had been cut under the Timber Salvage Act (Bass 1996).  National forest lands to be logged totaled at least 50 million acres.  Major habitat areas for many endangered and threatened species were among these lands.  Fortunately, this law expired at the end of 1996.