Owl Vs. Owl

February 20, 2011

By The Oregonian Editorial Board

Can a 12-gauge shotgun be a conservation tool? That's one question raised by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's newly revised recovery plan for the Northern spotted owl. Here's another:

After 20-plus years of struggling to save the spotted owl, must we keep trying?

The answer, in both cases, is yes.

Yes, experimenting with shooting some of the barred owls that have aggressively moved into the spotted owl's precious old-growth habitat is worth attempting. The Northwest has made enormous sacrifices to save this bird -- much of its timber industry, countless jobs, entire rural communities. The influx of a hardier, more prolific owl is no excuse to give up now.

No one is calling for open season on barred owls. The federal recovery plan simply recognizes that the barred owl has marched in from eastern forests and become a serious threat to its smaller, less adaptable and more finicky cousin. A few early tests have suggested that when invading barred owls are removed, spotted owls move back and resume nesting.

After all the Northwest has been through, it's worth expanding those experiments and learning, one way or the other, whether it makes sense to do larger-scale barred owl controls.

It's an unpleasant thought, sending out shotgunners to call in and gun down hundreds of barred owls across Washington, Oregon and Northern California. These owls, too, are beautiful birds and impressive predators. But biologists often move to reduce the numbers of one species to help save another threatened species. Sea lions, terns and cormorants all have been targeted in defense of endangered salmon. Elsewhere, biologists have killed many other animals and birds, even golden eagles, to give more habitat and hope to endangered species.

All signs suggest that these are still desperate times for spotted owls. Surveys show their numbers continue to fall at a rangewide annual rate of almost 3 percent, a greater decline that biologists anticipated. Of course, barred owls are far from the only threat to the spotted owl. Wildfire, disease, insect outbreaks and drought all have accelerated on public forests.

But there's also much more than barred owl controls in the Fish and Wildlife Service's new recovery plan. Biologists are taking lessons learned from decades of spotted owl research, doubling down on protections of older forests and other key habitat that they now know are crucial to the birds, while lifting restrictions on logging across much of the rest of overcrowded and diseased public forests. Federal biologists want to begin a discussion about how private forest owners can contribute to owl recovery, too.

The new owl plan is in line with the emerging consensus that not only is there a role for commercial logging and thinning in public forests, there's an absolute need for it. For the first time since the spotted owl fluttered to the fore of the Northwest timber debate, there's broad agreement that forest thinning and timber production can be compatible with wildlife conservation and habitat restoration.

Whether all this will ever reverse the steady decline in spotted owls remains anyone's guess. But the Northwest already has sacrificed so much to create a survivable space in old growth forests for this species. If spotted owl recovery requires the taking of some barred owls, so be it.

 
Obama's new forest rules:

February 20, 2011

By Guest Columnist - Dominick DellaSala and Randi Spivak 
 

Recognizing the need for a 21st-century vision, the Obama administration recently announced a sweeping planning rule for the 193 million acre national forest system. The rule will govern management of the national forests with the goal of maintaining and restoring forests and watersheds that Oregonians will increasingly depend on for climate change insurance.

National forests are among the last places to find old-growth trees and untrammeled places. They also serve as economic engines for local communities through dollars spent on outdoor recreation like hunting, fishing and camping. And they provide drinking water for more than 120 million people -- in the West, more than half of our water comes from national forests. So a lot is riding on this proposed rule.

The U.S. Forest Service's vision is good. It acknowledges the need for early public input on forest planning and, because national forests differ from place to place, maintains that forest plans should reflect some of these differences. The agency also recognizes that management decisions need to be grounded in sound science. But as always the devil is in the details. A closer look reveals that sound science only has to be considered, not actually used in forest plans. And while forests differ, the rule should ensure that essential ecosystem benefits transcending all forests -- such as clean drinking water and viable wildlife populations -- have meaningful protections.

 

The rule would require protective buffers around streams, but lacks measurable, enforceable standards such as limiting activities known to be harmful to watersheds. It punts these decisions to local managers. People who live in Bend, Medford, La Grande, Baker City, Salem and Ashland, who get a significant amount of their drinking water from national forests, should be concerned.

The rule is less protective of wildlife than even the 1982 Reagan planning rules. It does not require that Forest Service managers show that management actions are actually maintaining fish and wildlife populations. This omission could result in local wildlife extinctions that are important indicators of the health of ecosystems. And while the Forest Service talks about transitioning out of old-growth logging, there's no guidance on whether the agency will walk its talk when timber companies want to cut down our last mature and old-growth forests and mining companies are polluting salmon-bearing streams.

History shows that absent adequate safeguards, old-growth forests, roadless areas and clean water all take a back seat. Take for instance, the days before the 2001 roadless conservation rule was in place. At the time, about 1 million acres nationwide (an area the size of Rhode Island) was being damaged by logging and road building every decade because there was no national rule to guide local decisions.

The new proposed rule falls down on not providing enough guidance to local land managers and weakens protections for wildlife at a time when they are needed most. It will therefore become a litmus test for a 21st-century agency that is clamoring for new direction but may not actually achieve its objectives. The proof is in the fine print.

Dominick DellaSala is chief scientist and president of the Ashland-based Geos Institute. Randi Spivak is vice president of government affairs at the institute.