Famously in 1990, the Spotted Owl was declared an endangered species. It is generally assumed by some that this ruling and the subsequent ban on logging old growth public forests contributed to a decline of the entire northwest logging industry.
Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to reduce the size of protected land by 22%. While the issue of opening ANY old growth forest up to logging bothers me, I’m not an expert. I know nothing about forests, logging, or owl habitat and so my opinion matters little. Here is a commentary of the issue that I liked.
But, this follow-up article, which outlines the questionably close relationship between Fish and Wildlife Officials and logging powerhouse Weyerhaeuser, made me angry enough to blog about it.
Apparently, the US officials let the logging company edit their proposal to reduce the ban on logging. Why didn’t they let the environmental groups edit the proposal as well? This quote from the article sums up the way that Weyerhaeuser conducts business:
"In the mid-1990s, Weyerhaeuser told federal officials it would create a "habitat conservation plan" to guide its Southwest Washington logging. Because of that, the state did not take special efforts to protect owls there, as it did elsewhere. But Weyerhaeuser never produced the promised plan."
As annoying as environmental groups can be sometimes, I think instances like this are exactly what they exist for. Ironically, the Spotted Owl might be on the verge of extinction, but a large part of that has to do with the fact that it is "hybridizing" with the very closely related and thriving Barred Owls. In other words, perhaps the logging isn’t the biggest threat to the species. Maybe nature is.
"The barred owl either eats [spotted owls], kicks them out of their habitat, or mates with them—and sometimes the offspring are fertile…"
Sparred Owls???
6/27/07: Update: Today’s CSM has a great article on this issue. They obviously read my blog and considered it big news!
Labels: environment, Questionable Practices
