Shotgun conservation: The new spotted owl plan

Published: Tuesday, July 05, 2011, 3:55 PM     Updated: Tuesday, July 05, 2011, 4:03 PM

By The Oregonian Editorial Board

It's hard to be optimistic about the latest federal spotted owl recovery plan,
which includes experimental killing of a rival species, the barred owl 

It wasn't supposed to turn out this way with the northern spotted owl, its numbers still plummeting two decades after the government shut down vast areas of federal forests to logging.

PATRICK KOLAR/U.S. Geological Survey

The aggressive barred owl (pictured) is now seen as a serious threat to the recovery of the endangered Northern spotted owl.

 

Now comes another iteration of a federal recovery plan, this one doubling down on protections of old and intact forests that the spotted owls need and suggesting a double-barreled solution to the latest and most severe threat -- invading barred owls taking over the forest neighborhood.

The new recovery plan is chock-full of the latest best science, but here's a wild guess: It won't be enough. Owl numbers are plunging at an alarming rate of 9 percent annually in some areas of the Olympics and the Cascades; they are declining at 3 percent a year across their range in Oregon, Washington and Northern California.

It's hardly encouraging that the newest tool in spotted owl conservation is a 12-gauge shotgun. The federal plan suggests experimental shooting of barred owls, the bigger, more adaptable species driving out spotted owls, interbreeding and even occasionally killing male spotted owls. Maybe that will help spotted owls survive in selected areas -- and sure, let's give it a go -- but is the federal government prepared to hunt down and shoot barred owls for the rest of time?

Of course, there's no choice but to keep trying to save the spotted owl. The Endangered Species Act, thankfully, doesn't allow Americans to get frustrated and walk away from trying to preserve a species. And while we are pessimistic about the owl's future, we think the Obama administration's owl recovery plan is the best effort so far to save the owl from extinction and allow some logging on national forests in the Northwest.

It builds on 20 years of research on spotted owls, and more carefully and knowledgeably defines high-quality owl habitat. It also more clearly describes forests -- particularly young and overcrowded forests -- that are not suitable for owls and can and should be available for commercial logging.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not yet released its precise maps of critical habitat. Nor is the agency clear on what it means when it suggests that for the spotted owl to survive, older forests on state and private lands also need to be protected. The American Forest Resource Council, an industry group, claims the plan would impose "massive new restrictions on both federal and private lands." We don't read it that way, and federal officials say they have no intention of imposing owl regulations on private land but instead hope to collaborate with landowners to voluntarily conserve habitat.

It is too soon to give up on the spotted owl. The Northwest has already sacrificed so much -- thousands of jobs, entire rural communities -- to create a survivable space in old growth forests for this species. And yes, everyone needs to understand and appreciate that the long, long battle to save the owl has preserved clean water, air and habitat for countless other species.

But it is still deeply frustrating and humbling to learn, 20 years into this wrenching experiment, that we have come to a place where both the spotted owl and the Northwest timber industry seem to be trapped on the same sad flight path.