Quote:
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- The Bush administration has decided the northern spotted owl can get by with less old growth forest habitat as it struggles to make its way off the threatened species list.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that the federal forest land designated as critical habitat for the owl in Washington, Oregon and Northern California would be cut by 23 percent, a reduction of 1.6 million acres. Critical habitat is a requirement of the Endangered Species Act and offers increased protections against logging.
Research shows that spotted owl numbers are dropping by 4 percent annually as a result of logging, wildfires and an invasion of its habitat by the barred owl, a more aggressive East Coast cousin that migrated across Canada and has been working its way south.
Conservation groups said the critical habitat designation and a new plan for restoring owl populations were contrary to the advice of leading scientists and crafted to fulfill a Bush administration promise to the timber industry to increase logging.
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Best news I've heard in a while. Let's get our forests healthy again by letting the professional, college trained, well-experienced foresters decide how they should be best managed, instead of some guy in a robe who doesn't a have clue about how to keep a forest healthy. Had they left things alone, there would have been MORE NSO habitat today instead of less. With healthier forests, the NSO would be in a better postion to thrive. See, these little guys like forests with some cover to keep themselves hidden from barred owls, red-tail hawks and the like, but also enough open space to hunt. Using the forest management techniques that professionals use creates this exact kind of environment. Instead, we have either grossly overgrown stands, burned stands or diseased stands (future burned stands), none of which are the kind of environment a NSO likes to live in.
08-13-2008, 02:51 PM
Spotted owl habitat slashed as population declines
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