Northern spotted owl's decline revives old concerns
Habitat for the famous owl is again a hot issue, as the US seeks to set aside less old-growth forest.
from the June 27, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Many doubt that less is more
To wildlife activists and many scientists, that sounds like a step toward allowing more logging when the need may be for additional protected habitat to prevent extinction.
"This plan misses the mark in many respects, and it needs to be redone," Dr. DellaSala writes in his critique of the proposed recovery options. "Implementation of the plan is likely to increase extinction risks for the owl."
DellaSala, who was on the team developing a recovery plan, recently told Congress that "what was supposed to be a science-based plan was derailed by a pattern of political interference" by political appointees in the Bush administration.
"The unfortunate part of this thing is that this administration has chosen to reignite the timber wars, and the next administration that comes in is going to be inheriting a train wreck," he says in an interview. "In a nutshell, this is the key domino for toppling the protections in the Northwest Forest Plan, the old-growth protections."
At this point, the FWS figures the owl's recovery can be achieved in 30 years at a cost of nearly $200 million.
As for the barred owl, says FWS's Mr. Carroll, "the problem is significantly bigger than we had assumed."
But the prospect of killing this bigger invader "is not something we do lightly because they're still protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and it takes a permit to kill one," he says. "Anything that's done will be done very carefully and very slowly and with a lot of scientific study."
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