Copyright 2001 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel June 3, 2001 By JENNIFER BOWLES Riverside Press-Enterprise
Riverside, Calif. -- The California spotted owl has been steadily declining in the Southern California mountains -- the San Bernardinos, San Jacintos, Santa Anas among them -- as well as the Sierra Nevada, and is at the center of renewed haggling over the Endangered Species Act.
An environmental group is seeking to have the bird protected under the act, just the kind of lawsuit the Bush administration is attempting to curb.
Federal protection for the owl most likely wouldn't create the level of uproar that came from the Northwest timber industry when the bird's cousin, the northern spotted owl, was placed on the threatened-species list in 1990.
Logging in the Southern California mountains is limited to cutting trees for firewood. And while the San Bernardino National Forest is a playground for 8 million people each year, even recreation would not be seriously restricted. A few hiking and off-road trails already have been rerouted around owl nests, said Forest Service spokeswoman Ruth Wenstrom.
But construction projects that require clearing wide swaths of trees, such as power lines, sewer lines, new roads or expansion of a ski resort, could face tougher obstacles in getting approval, Wenstrom said.
"We intend to keep them off the threatened and endangered species list," said Matt Mathes, a Forest Service spokesman. " Frankly, when animals get on that list, that's something of a failure on the part of humans. That's not supposed to happen."
While logging is the main culprit in the owl's decline in the Sierra range, a multitude of issues plagues the owl's life in Southern California.
Among the potential problems, said Bill La Haye, a wildlife biologist working for the Forest Service, are damaging air pollution that banks up against the mountains; homes and ski resorts that chew up and fragment owl habitat; drought and wildfires.
The owls, the environmentalists say, are important to humans because they are indicators of the health of forests.
The Center for Biological Diversity is impatient with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's progress in helping the owl and has filed notice that it intends to sue the agency in an effort to get protection.
The service acknowledged in October that the owl's populations are declining and said it intended to decide by March whether to give the species federal protection. March came and went.
"It's on the back burner at the moment," said Pat Foulk, a spokeswoman for the agency's Sacramento office.
Environmentalists say lawsuits are the only way most species get protection. Legal action forced protection for the California spotted owl's cousins: the northern spotted owl and the Mexican spotted owl.
But the Bush administration is trying to quash the onslaught of such lawsuits -- there are 75 current lawsuits covering more than 400 species, plus 86 notices of intent to sue covering 640 more species, said Jane Hendron, a Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman.