Free Republic

School leaders in rural northwest Oregon are worried about big budget cuts. The Oregon Department of Forestry is working on a plan to protect habitats for endangered species across 640,000 acres of state forest. The loss of timber revenue will affect local schools. The Jewell School District expects to be the most heavily impacted because it gets almost all of its funding from timber revenue. It could see budget cuts of 40 percent. The Jewell School District has about 150 students and a budget of $5 million. District superintendent Cory Pederson estimates the cuts will bring his annual budget down...

Owls, more owls and federal land grabbers Owls In response to a 2013 lawsuit by WildEarth Guardians on behalf of the Mexican spotted owl, a federal judge in Arizona has ordered a halt to timber operations on all New Mexico forests and one forest in Arizona (about 12 million acres). WildEarth Guardians Executive Director John Horning said, “With this decision, the agencies will finally be held accountable for ensuring that all forest management practices help, not hinder, owl recovery.” The attorney for the organization on this case explained that “certain timber projects will be paused in light of the...

An owl flew into a Covington police officer's cruiser early Thursday (Dec. 24), pecking and scratching the officer and leading him to drive into a ditch, Chief Tim Lentz said. Officer Lance Benjamin received only minor scratches from the odd Christmas Eve encounter and was able to finish his shift. Lentz said he thought someone was playing a joke on him when he received a 1:45 a.m. text message that Benjamin had been in an accident involving a nocturnal bird of prey. "Surely nothing as outrageous as an owl flying into a police car could happen. I imagined the next...

The Interior Department said Tuesday that the greater sage grouse, a ground-dwelling bird whose vast range spans 11 Western states, does not need federal protections ... The fight over whether to list the bird as endangered or threatened recalled the battle over the spotted owl 25 years ago, where federal protection greatly impeded the logging economy. ... could help defuse a potential political liability for Democrats heading into the 2016 election; ... House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop said Tuesday's announcement was a "cynical ploy" intended to mask the fact that the Obama administration has imposed limits on development...

RENO -- As part of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) National Sage-Grouse Planning Strategy, the BLM and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are holding interactive social and economic public workshops. ... Interested partners will be guided on how to contribute social and economic information in the development of the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement to amend Land Use Plans throughout the Greater Sage-grouse’s range in Nevada and Northeast California. They will also provide an opportunity for individuals to provide information regarding the use of public lands resources, how public lands influence their quality of life and how the BLM and U.S....

To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside. The plan is the latest federal attempt to protect the northern spotted owl, the passive, one-pound bird that sparked an epic battle over logging in the Pacific Northwest two decades ago. The government set aside millions of acres of forest to protect the owl, but the bird’s population continues to decline — a 40 percent slide in 25 years. A plan announced Tuesday would designate habitat considered critical for the...

Wildlife biologists are proposing to shoot hundreds or even thousands of Pacific Northwest barred owls as a way to protect the endangered Northern spotted owl. Barred owls are larger, more aggressive and have been taking over spotted owl territory for the past 20 years. The proposal to shoot barred owls is part of a federal spotted owl recovery plan that will be released soon. Whether to intervene in what some see as a natural competition between species is a matter of hot debate among biologists, conservationists and the timber industry, which argues that we've set aside huge chunks of habitat...