U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Rejects Petition to List California Spotted Owl
By Juliana Barbassa, ABC News
May 23, 2006

FRESNO, Calif. May 23, 2006 (AP)— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday rejected a petition to list the California spotted owl under the Endangered Species Act, saying the population is stable and programs that prevent forest wildfires will allow it to thrive.

The decision rankled the environmental groups that had requested protection of the speckled, football-sized owl. This was their second effort to list the bird in three years.

The petition's denial was based in part on the recommendation of scientists commissioned to study the owl, said Steve Thompson, manager of the agency's California-Nevada operations office.

They found that fires that creep through excessive brush and eventually consume the old-growth forests the owls prefer are their main threat, Thompson said, adding that U.S. Forest Service tree thinning programs will prevent the spread of flames and ensure the owls remain off the endangered list.

But environmentalists protested, saying the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan, amended in 2004 to allow cutting trees of up to 30 inches in diameter, is logging in disguise and destroys owl habitat.

"They're completely off base," said Noah Greenwald, with the Center for Biological Diversity's Portland office. "Logging is by far the most serious threat to the California spotted owl and the kind of fuel reduction they're talking about is just that logging."

Greenwald said that it's long been understood that the owls need mature trees. He said that thin, easily consumed vegetation such as grass, brush and small trees under 12 inches in diameter are what feed the raging fires that can race through California's hills in summer and fall.

Environmentalists said the petition's denial has more to do with the current political climate than with threats facing the owl.

Another threat to the California spotted owl is encroachment into its territory by a larger, more aggressive owl the barred owl, originally from the East Coast.

But although the eastern owl moved quickly into the Pacific Northwest, its spread into the Sierra has been slower than anticipated, and it hasn't reached Southern California yet, federal officials said.

Placing the owl under federal protection would have required officials to designate habitat that is essential for its recovery. That could have significant impact on activities allowed within the 11.5 million acres of national forests in the Sierra.

It could severely limit commercial logging in the area, as seen when a closely related subspecies the northern spotted owl was listed as threatened in 1990. Large tracts of federal forests were closed to logging in Northern California, Oregon and Washington, cutting back logging by 80 percent in federal forests and reducing it in private lands, and leaving timber-depended towns to face an economic slump.

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U.S. Rejects Protection for Spotted Owl
By Jane Kay, San Francisco Chronicle
May 24, 2006

The federal government determined Tuesday that the California spotted owl does not need protection under the Endangered Species Act, a move that ruffled the feathers of environmental groups that are vowing to go to court on behalf of the bird.

After a yearlong review, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that the populations of the rare hooters are stable or increasing in forests of the Sierra Nevada and the coastal range from San Francisco to San Diego.

The agency decided primarily on a statistical study of four sites completed this year for the Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service.

Darrin Thome, a biologist in the Fish and Wildlife Service's California-Nevada office in Sacramento, said the study showed that "adult survival through the Sierra is increasing. There was no strong evidence of a decreasing linear trend in the population.''

The Bush administration's forest plan to thin trees would aid the owls, he said, because the responsible removal of vegetation would prevent catastrophic wildfires. "Cutting trees will help the owls because their territories won't burn to a crisp," Thome said.

But the agency's decision, which is set for publication today in the Federal Register, brought derisive hoots from environmental groups that have been trying to win listing for more than 15 years.

"Fish and Wildlife made an assumption that fire was the most serious threat to the California spotted owl, and so logging would reduce the threat," said Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that has filed two petitions and a lawsuit trying to win listing since 2000.

"We think that's preposterous. The most serious threats are clearly logging and the barred owl, a larger competitor,'' Greenwald said. His group and the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign in Placerville are considering suing the agency over the decision.

For 15 years, scientists have studied the elusive round-headed, ringed-eye California spotted owl weighing less than 2 pounds. It's the cousin of the high-profile northern spotted owl, which stopped logging in some parts of the Pacific Northwest 15 years ago after regulators determined it was threatened, and the warm-weather Mexican spotted owl.

Both the northern and the Mexican subspecies of the spotted owl were designated as threatened as the big trees in their territories disappeared over decades of clear-cutting.

Researchers estimate there are 2,300 territories where the California spotted owl lives in the United States. A territory consists of a single owl, a pair, or a pair and offspring.

In contrast, the northern spotted owl has about 6,000 territories in its range from southern British Columbia and western Washington and Oregon to San Francisco.

A listing of endangered or threatened for the California spotted owl likely would lead to restrictions on logging on public and private timberlands.

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Sierra Pacific Industries, the largest private landowner of commercial forests in the state, has begun efforts to increase owl habitat.

Thome said large-scale logging doesn't pose the threat that it did during the era when the northern spotted owl was listed in 1990. He cited figures obtained from the California Board of Equalization showing that between 1993 and 2004, logging in the Sierra Nevada has been reduced on private lands by 37 percent and in national forests by 81 percent.

But Greenwald said he sees the agency's decision not to list the owl as political. During President George H.W. Bush's administration, 234 species were listed, while 512 species were listed under the Clinton administration. Only 56 species have been brought under the act under the current president, he said.

"This decision has to be looked at in the context that the Bush administration has again and again showed opposition to protecting species under the Endangered Species Act,'' Greenwald said.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and as defined under the provisions of "fair use", any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment for non-profit research and for educational use by our membership.