Well, I can see where this guy would have manhood "issues" on his mind.
Posted on 03/01/2002 12:20:14 AM PST by sarcasm
The federal government must consider withdrawing Endangered Species Act protection for the northern spotted owl or face a lawsuit, a coalition of timber companies say in a petition filed recently with Interior Secretary Gale Norton.
The American Forest Resource Council issued a similar threat in January regarding the marbled murrelet, a lesser-known bird that nonetheless has halted logging on hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land, just as the owl has on millions of acres of public forest.
In both cases, the timber group argues on procedural grounds that the federal government has failed to follow the Endangered Species Act's requirement to review the status of threatened animals every five years. And it argues on scientific grounds that new evidence shows the birds are not in as much trouble as originally thought when they earned protection under the law in the early 1990s.
"The information we have about both these species is a lot different from when they were listed" as threatened, said Chris West, vice president of the Forest Resource Council. "We just want a reassessment of: Are they at risk, and if they are at risk, what is the culprit?"
Joan Jewett, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the owl is one of the best-studied animals in the Pacific Northwest.
"They are still declining, and they still need help," she said. Similarly, the murrelet population is heavily studied and also appears to be in decline, she said.
Norton has 60 days from the receipt of the petitions to act. If she does not, or if the timber group is not satisfied with her response, it would be legally empowered to file suit against the government.
Although the attempt to remove the birds' protection may seem like a long shot, it may not be. A judge in Los Angeles earlier this week agreed with a request by the Bush administration, which, facing a slew of developers' lawsuits, asked to vacate the protection for thousands of acres of land considered critical to an imperiled shrimp and a small bird in a four-county area of Southern California.
The timber group's petition says that scientists have produced "a materially different picture of the status of the northern spotted owl population" than what federal officials relied on in extending legal protection to the birds in 1990.
A lead author of several of the studies cited by the industry is Alan Franklin, a wildlife biologist at Colorado State University, who said studies since the owl was protected show "a mixed bag."
In six of 15 areas studied, including Washington's Olympic Peninsula, spotted owl populations appeared to be dwindling. Three other populations appeared stable, while data on the remainder were too ambiguous to determine a trend.
"Everybody wants it cut and dried -- it's either declining or not," Franklin said. "Sorry, but it's not that clear-cut."
In rejecting an earlier petition to remove the owls' protections, the Fish and Wildlife Service shortly after President Bush's inauguration noted that one study Franklin headed measured the owls' decline between 1985 and 1998 at an average of 3.9 percent a year. That was an improvement over the 4.5 percent annual decline measured earlier.
"Reproductive rates and ... survival rates can be relatively stable, but still be lower than necessary to support a stable population," the Fish and Wildlife Service wrote. "The result is a declining population."
The timber industry's petition cites emerging evidence that the owls are not exclusively dependent on old-growth forests protected under the Clinton administration.
Franklin said that's true to a degree in a Northern California area he is studying, where owls survive best in old-growth forests but reproduce more when blocks of old-growth are interspersed with younger forests, some where timber was previously cut. The latter may partially mimic the cleared-out areas common before settlement when fires frequently ravaged the forests.
The owls' prime prey there, dusky-footed wood rats, multiply abundantly in the dense undergrowth that appears about five to 10 years after a clearcut, Franklin said. It appears that the owls are better able to reproduce because they find abundant food when the rats' population grows dense enough that some move out of the undergrowth and are caught at the edge of the old growth.
However, large swaths of clearcuts do not appear to be ideal for the owls, Franklin said. He also cautioned that Northern California forests are different from those in Oregon and Washington, so the same pattern may not hold here.
West, of the timber group, suggested that something other than logging might be hurting the owls. Some of the spotted owls' decline might be blamed on the barred owl, a larger, more aggressive bird that has recently arrived in the Pacific Northwest, he said.
The industry petition also points out that scientists now know that their early studies of owl population were flawed because they could not account for what happens to young birds that fly a long way from their birth forest to establish a new home.
"Just because they move away to another area, that means we can cut down the forest?" Fish and Wildlife's Jewett asked rhetorically.
Environmentalist Mitch Friedman of the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance said the timber industry "is missing the forest for the logs."
"Here's the timber industry wanting the government to spend a lot of money reviewing the status of a creature that has already gotten a huge amount of review and that has a recovery program moving forward," he said.
"I think they see this as a challenge to their manhood that an 18-inch bird has outwilled them. What they're missing is that the spotted owl had all of society behind it."
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Few things piss me off more than the misuse of the word "all". It's like commercials for products that call themselves "America's (fill in the blank)...". Just lost my my sale.
This guy may mean that all of his society believed the spotted owl BS, but that wasn't all society, and hopefully those non-believers are finally being heard.
This is just more enviro-fraud. - The 'northern' spotted owl is in no way different than any other spotted owl. - They have always been plentiful and always will be because they prey on the rodents that thrive on the waste that we leave behind.
The price of lumber tripled between 89 & 93 because of this foolishness. Lots & lots of jobs were lost, lots of rural areas suffered a great deal, lots of exports lost and in the end it does nothing for the owl or the environment to do this.
Spotted owls are alive and thriving here in Humboldt County but you can bet your sweet bippy that the enviros have a couple of new critters lined up to take its place. A forester told me this 7 years ago.
Although the attempt to remove the birds' protection may seem like a long shot, it may not be. A judge in Los Angeles earlier this week agreed with a request by the Bush administration, which, facing a slew of developers' lawsuits, asked to vacate the protection for thousands of acres of land considered critical to an imperiled shrimp and a small bird in a four-county area of Southern California.
Bump.
Thanks to Andy Kerr and his lying phoney scientists, thousands and thousands of loggers, private foresters and the truckers who hauled out the timber we all need, lost their jobs to economic terrorism based on lies!
These enviral nazis are no different than the current Islamic Nazis who want destroy jobs in America to destroy us!
We have at least 3 and maybe 4 to 6 spotted owls living in the 30 to 40 year old California Oaks in our area. It was rumored that a spotted owl had made a nest in the R at the old K Mart that was closed. These owls like to make a nest in the loop part of an big R sign.
Spotted Owl = vehicle for rural cleansing and economic terrorism by enviral nazis, based on lies and no real science!
Well, I can see where this guy would have manhood "issues" on his mind.
The price of lumber tripled between 89 & 93 because of this foolishness. Lots & lots of jobs were lost, lots of rural areas suffered a great deal, lots of exports lost and in the end it does nothing for the owl or the environment to do this.
The people responsible -- those that caused the problem -- must be held accountable and pay restitution. Massive fraud should land them in prison for at least a decade.
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