Kim Todd’s feature – Conservation quandary in the
August 4th edition – zeros in on key ethical questions which arise
within the context of endangered species management in general and northern spotted owl (NSO) management in particular. But readers who are not familiar
with the conflicts over forest management in the Pacific Northwest and northern
California in the 1990s will need to know a little more about the history and
politics of the ancient forests in order to fully appreciate what is at stake
as the long-delayed recovery plan for the northern spotted owl lurches toward
completion.
The first thing to understand is that management of the NSO
under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and on the national forests are not
synonymous. The ESA is a single species
law; but national forests are required by the National Forest Management Act to
manage for viable populations of all naturally occurring species well
distributed throughout the species’ ranges. To implement this mandate, the
Forest Service long ago chose the northern spotted owl to represent all species
which depend on old forest habitat for survival. The list of species for which
the NSO is the “indicator” ranges from the Pacific fisher to little known salamanders,
snails and lichens.
It is also necessary to understand that the Northwest Forest
Plan protected the minimal amount of old forest habitat that would pass
muster as sufficient for the survival not only of the NSO but all those other old
forest species. And – in a deal Bruce Babbitt and the Clinton administration
cut with the large timber companies – protection for the NSO on private forests was
minimized. Through HCPs granted to timber companies the “take” of many hundred of breeding NSO pairs has been authorized by the Clinton and Bush administrations. This has allowed private land logging to continue with minimal decrease in timber
production. For old forest dependent species, however, the HCPs have been a disaster. From the beginning, federal managers have been managing for
minimums – minimum habitat and minimum number of owls. In biology management for minimums with no
cushion for random events is risky; often it does not work out well.
NSO researchers have known about the threat from the barred
owl for at least two decades. Even before the barred owls arrived in the
Northwest, owl biologists predicted that – if old forests continued to be
fragmented by logging – the new landscape created would favor the barred owl
over its spotted cousin. So it should come as no surprise that barred owls are
displacing spotted owls. The more open, fragmented forests were expected to
also result in increased predation by great horned owls. The relative importance of barred owl and great horned owl predation in the decline of the NSO is unclear.
With the focus on barred owls the role of habitat and great horned owl predation are pushed to the sidelines. This is not because of new
scientific discoveries but rather the influence of politics – a subject from
which Todd’s feature steered clear.
The timber industry and the biologists industry giants
employ are heavily promoting the barred owl as the number-one threat to the NSO. They
also promote the idea that we can “save” the NSO by killing barred owls.
Industry strategists see the barred owl as the key to liquidating the last
pockets of old growth on their vast Northwest-northern California land holdings
as well as to regaining access to log old growth on the national forests. Here’s an example of how this plays out on
the landscape:
From where I write near the mouth of the Klamath
River I can look up at the clearcuts and plantations of Green
Diamond Timber Company’s northern California holdings.
During the Clinton administration this Seattle-based timber company – formerly Simpson Timber
– received a 50 year Habitat Conservation Plan that allowed it to “take” 50
pairs of NSOs through continued
liquidation of old growth forests on the company’s northern California
timberlands. In exchange, Simpson-Green Diamond agreed to protect isolated and
difficult to log old growth which provided habitat for another 8 NSO pairs.
Now, less than 20 years later, the company wants to amend the HCP in order to “take” the
remaining eight owl pairs by liquidating those remaining isolated patches of old
forest habitat. In exchange, Simpson-Green Diamond proposes shooting barred
owls.
Can we “save” the northern spotted owl from extinction by
killing barred owls? Possibly. But such
a policy will not save the rest of the old forest species for which the spotted
owl is an indicator. In order to do that we need large forest reserves, not
fragmented patches of forest interspersed with clear-cuts and plantations.
The Bush Administration’s proposal to slash NSO critical
habitat is part of a larger effort to do away with the system of large public forest
reserves established by the Northwest Forest Plan. These national forest and
BLM reserves remain the best hope for the survival of Northwest-northern
California ancient forest ecosystems. Undisturbed
older forests also contain the remaining salmon strongholds and they protect
the drinking water on which our communities depend. The barred owl has not
altered these realities no matter how much the timber industry and their shills
in government might wish that were the case.
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