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Log Spotted Owl Habitat Again? Didn’t We Already Make That Mistake Once?

Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) photo USFWS

Scientists Call Plan to Log Spotted Owl Habitat “Giant House of Cards”

(Washington, D.C., October 9, 2012) The recent proposed Critical Habitat designation for the Northern Spotted Owl does not protect the threatened species charge the Society for Conservation Biology, The Wildlife Society, American Bird Conservancy, and other groups. Comments submitted by the groups find that, by encouraging controversial and unproven logging practices in owl habitat, the draft plan fails to provide adequate habitat protection essential for the owl’s survival.

The groups are highly critical of the “active management” approach being taken by The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and have requested an Environmental Impact Statement to determine its impact on owl habitat and population trends. A previous review of the Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan by scientists at The Wildlife Society has been ignored by USFWS, and the same flaws are now being included by the agency in the Critical Habitat plan. This raises serious questions about the scientific process used by the agency.

You can read the report in its entirety here. You can also read a great article regarding the Barred Owl threat to the Spotted Owl entitled “The Spotted Owl’s New Nemesis” written back in 2009. You might also want to check the USFWS’s Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Information Site page.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Sallie (FullTime-Life) October 11, 2012, 9:52 am

    Oh no. Why do these things keep coming back — you think a problem has been solved and then they just bring it up again.

  • Mia McPherson October 11, 2012, 1:44 pm

    I wish this surprised me, I really do, but it doesn’t. It is sad though. I hope that the Environmental Impact statements proves that critical habitat for the survival of the species is paramount.

  • Dian Miller October 11, 2012, 3:30 pm

    Thanks for compiling all this Larry.
    Be interesting to follow.

    I didn’t know this – “By the end of the century, timber harvest on 24 million acres of federal land had dropped 90 percent from its heyday. The spotted owl crystallized the power of the species-protection law. No threatened animal has done more to change how we use land”

  • Larry October 11, 2012, 10:43 pm

    @Sallie, Mia and Dian, thank you for your support on this matter. So far I have been unable to find a way to support this effort other than supporting the groups fighting the change.