Peer Reviews Flunk Bush Plans for Spotted Owl
By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press
August 13, 2007

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- The Bush administration's plans for saving the northern spotted owl from extinction have flunked a peer review by scientists.

Under a contract with the administration, the Society for Conservation Biology and the American Ornithologists' Union said the government did not consider all the best available science, a requirement of the Endangered Species Act, before making room for more logging in old-growth forests.

The organizations reviewed a draft recovery plan that rates the invasion of the barred owl into spotted owl territory a greater threat than habitat loss, as well as a proposal to reduce critical habitat for the owl by 22 percent.

The two proposals are key to plans to bring back clearcut logging in old-growth forests on U.S. Bureau of Land Management forests in Western Oregon, aimed at increasing timber production and restoring timber revenue to county governments.

The reviewers of the recovery plan said there appears to be a scientific consensus that the plans would not only fail to bring back owl populations but also would result in downgrading its status from threatened to endangered.

The bird has suffered over the long term from logging in its old-growth forest habitat, and in the last few years it has faced a threat from an invasive relative, the barred owl.

"The recovery team failed to make use of the best available science and, in fact, appears to have selectively cited from the available science to justify a reduction in habitat protection," they wrote. "Based on current information, far too much emphasis is placed on the adverse effects of barred owl range expansion."

A separate review of the proposal to reduce critical habitat for the owl by 22 percent earned an even harsher review, expressed in a letter from society North American Section President Reed Noss and society policy director John Fitzgerald in a letter dated Friday to Fish and Wildlife Field Supervisor Kemper McMaster.

"Our main recommendation to (Fish and Wildlife) is to scrap the draft recovery plan, convene a panel of independent scientists and ecologists to redo the recovery plan, and place on hold related forest policy decisions ... until a new recovery plan is completed based on the best available science," they wrote.

The spotted owl was declared a threatened species in 1990 due primarily to heavy logging in the forests where it nests and feeds. Lawsuits from conservation groups led to a reduction of more than 80 percent in logging on federal lands in Washington, Oregon and Northern California.

Working with the timber industry under a lawsuit settlement, the Bush administration has been trying to increase logging levels, but has repeatedly been stymied by court rulings.

Meanwhile, owl numbers have continued to decline. The new threat from the barred owl has led to arguments from the timber industry that it is no longer necessary to protect so much old growth if there are no owls living in it.

Dominic DellaSala of the National Center for Conservation Science and Policy, a member of the recovery team, said the peer review's findings supported his contention, voiced in testimony before Congress, that members of the Bush administration exerted political pressure on them to produce a recovery plan that blamed barred owls more than loss of habitat for the owl's decline.

"To be in compliance with (The Endangered species Act) you have to have a recovery plan based on the best available science," he said. "The peer review said it's not based on the best available science. Either they follow up on that problem or it will take some Congressional action."

Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Joan Jewett said the peer reviews would be taken into consideration along with other comments from the public before producing a final owl recovery plan and critical habitat designation by next year.

She added that the chairman of the recovery team, Fish and Wildlife Deputy Regional Director Dave Wesley, had met face to face with and been on conference calls with an administration oversight group, but that the team did not alter the recovery plan as a result.

The plans were also reviewed independently by The Wildlife Society, a leading professional organization of wildlife biologists, which also found the recovery plan so deeply flawed that it should be scrapped and a new one developed from scratch.

"We are drawn to the conclusion that (the recovery plan) will not achieve the basic interest of spotted owl conservation," the society's reviewers wrote. "We come to this conclusion because the spotted owl is one of the most studied species ever listed under the (Endangered Species Act), yet there is no reliance in this plan on the breadth and depth of the information available to create a scientifically credible plan."

On the Net:

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A Catalog of Forest Failures
Daily Astorian Editorial
August 15, 2007

What does 2007 have in common with 1987? Both are times of ill-conceived rushes to pillage public lands by Republican administrations nearing their final days.

It must be noted that there are many differences between the Bush and Reagan administrations. For one thing, the latter now in some ways seems a model of competency and moderation compared to the alarming shambles we confront today.

But both have pulled out all stops in converting public assets into profits for political supporters. During the current administration, for example, vast tracts of public land have been consigned to intensive energy exploration and development with little consideration for avoiding environmental damage.

When it comes to management of public forests in the Pacific Northwest, the U.S. Forest Service under President Reagan regarded high harvest levels as its raison d'être. There was neither the disposition nor an established legal framework for anything other than managing forests so that private companies could cut them down.

Today, a generation of court decisions and a considerable change of heart in the Forest Service have combined to make harvests far slower than they were 20 years ago. In some instances it can be argued that this has resulted in the opposite extreme for forest management, with appropriate timber sales stalled for years at a time, damaging local economies in Oregon counties where most forest is federally owned. Logging levels in the Pacific Northwest have declined by more than 90 percent since the late 1980s.

Even so, a sudden spurt in National Forest harvest preparations is certain to raise legitimate concerns. Having cut a deal with the timber industry, the Bush Forest Service is now flush with funds for logging, even while money remains too tight to maintain existing roads and recreational facilities.

A large part of the reason harvests have failed to reach targets set by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan is that President Bush and Congress failed to give the Forest Service enough money to perform all its many jobs. Public foresters shouldn't have to pick which parts of their mission to neglect.

Among many other messes left for the next president, Northwest forests are likely to be pretty far down the list. But solid leadership and a new forest summit conference are the minimum of what is needed to get forest management back on track. We shouldn't have to have this same discussion in 2027.

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.