The feds take sides in the battle between spotted owls and barred
owls.
By JAMES L. HUFFMAN
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results. So what is 20 years of failed efforts to save the northern
spotted owl followed by a new plan that is equally unlikely to
succeed? Does the Endangered Species Act allow us to accept failure—or
must we press on without regard for the likelihood of success and the
economic and human costs of the effort?
Clearly, the federal government and environmentalists believe we must
press on. Two decades after millions of acres of federal forests in
the Northwest were virtually closed to logging, with devastating
consequences for a once flourishing timber industry, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service has issued its "final" plan to save the owl.
No one really expects the strategy to work—not even those who first
brought attention to the plight of the spotted owl. As Forest Service
biologist Eric Forsman told the New York Times last month, "If you'd
asked me in 1975, 'Can we fix this problem?' I'd have said, 'Oh yeah,
this problem will go away.'" But he says he's grown "much less
confident as the years have gone by."
And for good reason. Despite a 90% cutback in harvesting on federal
lands (which constitute 46% of Oregon and Washington combined), the
population of spotted owls continues to decline, as do rural
communities that once prospered across the Northwest. In some areas,
spotted owls are vanishing at a rate of 9% per year, while on average
the rate is 3%.
In the 1980s, before the owl was listed as threatened, nearly 200
sawmills dotted the state of Oregon, churning out eight billion board
feet of federal timber a year. Today fewer than 80 mills process only
600 million board feet of federal timber. In Douglas County, for
example, several mills dependent on federal timber have closed. Real
unemployment in many Oregon counties exceeds 20%, double the national
average.
Meanwhile, vast unmanaged federal forests have become immense fire
traps. The 2002 Biscuit Fire in southern Oregon and northern
California burned 500,000 acres, cost $150 million to fight, and
destroyed $5 billion worth of timber. It also resulted in the deaths
of an estimated 75 pairs of spotted owls.
The final Revised Recovery Plan, issued on June 30, calls for
expanding protections for owls beyond the nearly six million acres
currently set aside. Ironically, it also calls for the "removal"—i.e.,
shooting—of hundreds of barred owls, a larger and more adaptable rival
of the spotted owl that competes for prey and nesting sites, and
sometimes breeds with the spotted owl.
How much will it cost to implement this plan? The Fish and Wildlife
Service says the species could be rejuvenated over the next 30 years
at a cost of about $127 million. But that money will do little if
anything to rejuvenate the depressed rural communities of the
Northwest where still more timber land will be off limits to
harvesting.
The truth is that no one fully understands why the spotted owl
continues to decline. The rise of the barred owl poses an unexpected,
but not surprising, complication. If the natural world would just
remain static, species preservation and ecological management would be
far simpler. But Mother Nature relishes competition, and the barred
owl is a fierce competitor. Are we really prepared to send armed
federal agents into Northwest forests in search of barred owls? And
what will groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have
to say as the carcasses pile up?
In the early 1990s, when the spotted-owl controversy reached its peak,
people desperate to save their jobs and communities joked about having
spotted-owl barbecues. Today it seems that the joke is on those who
believed science always has a solution.
And even assuming the spotted owl can be saved, is there no cost too
high? How many millions of acres of forest must be abandoned? How many
rival birds must be killed? Would anybody really notice if barred owls
displaced and interbred with every last spotted owl in the Northwest?
For most Northwesterners it was never really about the owls anyway. It
was about preservation, in some pristine state, of some of the
planet's most productive forests versus the management of those
forests to serve the interests of mankind. But even preservation
proves to be an elusive goal as forests age and debris accumulates to
feed the next forest fire.
The spotted-owl saga provides convincing evidence that it's time to re-
examine our objectives and methods in species protection, followed by
appropriate amendments to the Endangered Species Act.
Mr. Huffman, dean emeritus of Lewis & Clark Law School, is a member of
the Hoover Institution's task force on Property Rights, Freedom and
Prosperity.
Posted by Bob Zybach
No comments:
Post a Comment