 A Northern spotted owl takes flight with a mouse offered as bait by biologists checking the owl population near Grants Pass, Ore. The red eyes are from the photographer's flash. (Photo by Doug Beghtel) |
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Posted on 04/30/2007 9:14:47 AM PDT by Incorrigible
By MICHAEL MILSTEIN
| A Northern spotted owl takes flight with a mouse offered as bait by biologists checking the owl population near Grants Pass, Ore. The red eyes are from the photographer's flash. (Photo by Doug Beghtel) |
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[Grants Pass, OR] -- The Pacific Northwest's most famous bird will soon get bodyguards.
Northern spotted owls, already beaten down by longtime logging of their old growth forest habitat, now face an accelerating threat from invading barred owls.
The outlook for the spotted owl is increasingly grim as barred owls compete with spotted owls for food and space and, in some cases, attack and kill them.
The trend jeopardizes the benefits of past owl protections, which caused emotional upheaval across the Northwest as they nearly halted logging on federal lands
In a draft recovery plan for spotted owls released this week, federal officials propose an experimental program to lure barred owls with recorded calls and decoys and blast them with shotguns. The goal is to control barred owl numbers in strategic areas to see whether spotted owls can retake the ground.
More than 500 barred owls could be killed in 18 study areas across Oregon, Washington and Northern California, according to the plan announced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
``If we don't get this threat under control, no amount of habitat protection will save the spotted owl,'' said Dave Wesley, deputy regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and leader of the team that developed the new recovery plan.
Barred owl shooting may begin even before the plan is finalized in about a year and could expand. Barred owls were killed under a trial project in Northern California in 2005 and 2006, and spotted owls that had gone missing for a year returned within two weeks.
Barred owls spread from the eastern United States. Controlling them is just one element of the plan to bring back the Northern spotted owl, designated a threatened species in 1992. If it works _ a big if, given the threats _ spotted owls might recover in 30 years at a cost of about $198 million.
But the recovery plan faces criticism by environmentalists, who helped write it. They say political appointees in the Bush administration dictated changes that could erode protections for spotted owls.
The debate centers on whether specific reserves should be set aside for spotted owls to foster the older forests they prefer. That was the approach under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which reserved some areas for wildlife but opened others to logging.
Timber industry leaders argue the reserves tie the hands of land managers, who should have more freedom to allow logging if it reduces the risk of wildfires, for example.
Owls did not lose as much habitat to logging on federal lands as they did to wildfires and other natural forces from 1994 to 2004, studies indicate.
A team set up by the Fish and Wildlife Service to develop the new owl recovery plan first drew up an approach that outlined specific conservation areas for the owl.
But that went to a high-level Washington, D.C., ``oversight committee'' that included Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey and Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett.
That committee sent the plan back, asking for a new option that did not lay out specific areas for the owl.
That frustrated some team members who suspect federal agencies want to undo safeguards provided by the Northwest Forest Plan.
The intent of the instructions from Washington was to consider ways of protecting owls without restricting land management, said Interior Department spokesman Hugh Vickery.
``We were not prepared for the rejection of what we had done and the direct order to revise it,'' said Tim Cullinan, a biologist from the National Audubon Society. ``This is just another crowbar they're planning to wreck the Northwest Forest Plan.''
(Michael Milstein is a staff writer for The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. He can be contacted at michaelmilstein(at)news.oregonian.com.)
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The most important bird in the world....
In the mean time... seals are eating endangered salmon.
Trick Question:
Why is it called the “Northern” Spotted Owl?
Sounds like we should be hunting owls to me. :)
Wait until someone figures out that all those massive windmill power plants are a hazard to flying birds including the spotted owl.
dang, where’s my spotted owl costume? People in this liberal dump (Anacortes, WA) would be bowing down and throwing money at me if I was wearing it.
Now aren’t these idiots interfering with the very ideas they preach? If it’s the survival of the fittest, shouldn’t we be letting “mother nature” run its course?
whats the difference, they both taste the same
It is the same bird as the California Spotted Owl.
This is pretty much the same issue as global warming.
Climate has NEVER been static.
The genome of any species has NEVER been static either.
These people only believe in evolution when it suits their purposes. When it comes to "endangered species," they no longer believe in it.
How much money is this stupid spotted owl costing us taxpayers???
let the dam thing go extinct already... just keep some DNA samples fer crissakes.
And, Apparently, the biggest wussy..
Somebody better tell the barred owls that they are.
Owls killing other owls officially qualifies as "None of the Federal Government's Business". ;)
Bingo, THE N. Spotted Owl ain’t a species, and they don’t need “Old Growth” which the enviro’s never really defined. They live in Kmart signs, second growth and anything else. AND, their best hunting is in clear cuts.
Global warming is due to the artificially protracted survival of species which should have otherwise gone extinct.
lol
What a pant load! Spotted owls eat small rodents and those are very scarce in old growth forest habitat. Remember the "intellectual" who when told of the Spotted Owl nest in the K-Mart Sign, responded that it must be a different sub-species of Spotted Owl.
In a way it sounds like a thinly disguised history of the United States.
So, all owls are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Darn, where am I going to get my Spotted Owl Soup now?
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