Saga of the spotted owl not over yet
Federal government’s proposed recovery plan renews debate over bird’s habitat
“As goes the owl, so, too, a host of values that are hitched to old-growth forest.” — Dominick DellaSala, northern spotted owl recovery plan team member
For the past year, Dominick DellaSala has been part of a 12-member team charged with creating a recovery plan for the northern spotted owl.
Now a draft of the recovery plan has been released to the public, and he has become one of that plan’s most outspoken critics.
It seems that the spotted owl, which was so controversial in the 1990s, is still a magnet for conflict.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking public input on the new draft recovery plan for the spotted owl. “It’s probably the most significant hearing that we’ve had on the spotted owl in over a decade,” says Bob Sallinger, conservation director of the Audubon Society of Portland.
But before the public can voice an opinion, it needs to understand the draft plan and its implications, which is no mean feat.
Since it was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, the northern spotted owl has been a lightning rod for conflict between environmentalists and the timber industry.
That remains the case as the Fish and Wildlife Service brings to the table a proposal containing two options for recovery and begins to address a new threat to the spotted owl: invading barred owls that are moving into spotted owl territory.
Barred owls are native to a large swath of eastern North America. Named for the “barred” feather patterns on their bodies, these owls have been expanding their range.
In California and the Northwest, the invaders are increasingly displacing spotted owls from nesting spots. Sometimes they kill spotted owls outright. The new draft plan calls barred owls “the most important threat currently facing the spotted owl.”
Draft looks at federal land
The draft plan also offers two options for creating spotted owl reserves. Both options focus on federal land. State and privately owned land would not be affected, unless land managers choose to use the guidelines in making land-use decisions of their own, according to Joan Jewett, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Option 1 of the draft plan includes a map of forests that would be reserved for spotted owl habitat.
“In many cases those locations are overlaid on the current reserve system in the Northwest Forest Plan,” Jewett says, referring to the comprehensive forest management plan that has stood in for specific owl protections since 1994.
Option 2 of the draft plan, on the other hand, gives decision-making power to forest managers – meaning, for the most part, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service. It provides guidelines they would have to follow to set aside reserves for spotted owls.
“They would have more flexibility in deciding where those areas are going to be as they go through the process of revising their forest management plans,” Jewett says.
The inclusion of two options in a draft wildlife recovery plan is unprecedented.
“With such a far-ranging, complex species, the Service is interested in generating the widest possible discussion about the best way to recover the species,” a fact sheet about the plan says (more information can be found at www.fws.gov/pacific/ecoservices).
“The final plan, which will be out in about a year, will likely just have one option,” Jewett says. “That may be either of these options, or something else.”
Timber group has preference
The American Forest Resource Council, a group that represents privately owned timber companies in the Northwest, is solidly behind Option 2.
“The problem is, lines on the map in Option 1 are still based on the old paradigm that the owl is purely dependent on old growth,” says Chris West, the group’s vice president. “Option 2 allows them to put the lines on the map based on where the owls really are, and what they’re using.”
He argues for a more locally based, ground-level approach to managing the owls.
“But if your goal is to continue to use the owl for other purposes, like the halting of timber harvesting, then you’re not going to be happy with Option 2,” he says.
“And that’s why some are squawking, because the owl’s never the issue, it’s been a whole bunch of other things. … When you use the owl as a surrogate for something else, that does a disservice to the environment.”
If timber companies prefer Option 2, does that mean environmentalists favor Option 1?
“No,” says the Audubon Society of Portland’s Sallinger. “Neither option is anywhere near acceptable.”
He adds: “This is not a recovery plan, in my mind; this is an extinction plan. … We are encouraging our members and people who are concerned about the spotted owl and our ancient forests to promote the rejection of this plan altogether.”
Politics is in the mix
Sallinger takes issue with the draft plan’s emphasis on the barred owl over habitat loss and argues that neither version of the plan would set aside enough old-growth reserves to increase the spotted owl population.
Worse, he says, the draft plan in its current state is the result of political interference in the scientific process. He believes that the draft plan is dictated by the Bush administration, through a Washington, D.C., oversight committee that included high-ranking members from the Interior and Agriculture departments.
His view is confirmed by recovery team member DellaSala, who is a forest ecologist with the National Center for Conservation Science and Policy, based in Ashland.
Accusations of political interference with scientific findings hold a lot of water in today’s political climate. Interior Department Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett is among the Bush appointees who have come under fire in recent congressional hearings.
And in early May, Julie MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks at the Interior Department, resigned under allegations that she interfered with government scientists. She also admitted leaking internal documents to private industry groups.
“The political interference in the recovery plan resulted in a plan that is now out there, that has the potential to do more harm than good,” DellaSala says.
He says that once the Washington oversight committee got involved, the contents of the draft plan began veering away from scientific findings.
He sees Option 1 as a weakened version of what the plan should look like, and Option 2 as “kind of like turning the henhouse over to the fox.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service’s version of events is a little different.
“What they (the oversight committee) asked for was if we could come up with another approach to achieving recovery that would be as viable, be based on the same science, but provide a little more flexibility to the land managers,” Jewett says.
The service estimates that its plan, when finalized, will get the spotted owl to the point where it can be removed from the endangered species list within 30 years.
That claim is “absolutely false,” DellaSala counters.
“As goes the owl, so, too, a host of values that are hitched to old-growth forest,” he says. “It’s about clean water and wild salmon populations that are associated with intact old-growth ecosystems.
“This is more than just the spotted owl,” he adds.
And that’s the one thing on which everyone agrees.
A public meeting will provide information and accept public comments at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland Ballroom, 777 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Public comments will be accepted through June 25 and can be submitted to NSOplan@fws.gov or mailed to NSO Recovery Plan, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ecological Services, 911 N.E. 11th Ave., Portland, OR 97232.
annemariedistefano@portlandtribune.com