Oregon timber industry group files lawsuit over marbled murrelet habitat designations

By Eric Mortenson, The Oregonian  

 

The marbled murrelet may be hard to detect in west coast forests, but lawsuits over its fate have found nesting grounds in the courts.

A Portland timber industry group filed a lawsuit alleging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrongfully designated millions of unsuitable acres as critical marbled murrelet habitat. Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, said the agency designated land that not only isn't being used by the bird now, but doesn't have the old forest characteristics murrelets prefer.

The agency cannot "tie up currently unsuitable land hoping it turns into habitat that will support an endangered species," Partin said in a prepared statement. "That's like the government denying you a building permit because it hopes someday your neighborhood will become a city park."

Critical habitat designations do not prohibit logging, but require federal agencies such as the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to protect important characteristics of the area. In general, private landowners are not affected unless federal funding or permits are involved.

The lawsuit, filed Jan. 24 in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges the endangered species act requires that critical habitat designations must be limited to areas occupied by the species at the time. There is an exception to designate additional land if it is essential to the species' survival, according to the lawsuit. The resource council, which represents mills and other elements of the timber industry, is joined in the lawsuit by Douglas County and by the Carpenters Industrial Council.

Fish and Wildlife officials defend designating unoccupied sites as critical habitat. Doing so provides murrelets more habitat over time as forests age, and in the short term provides buffer zones that protect them from predators.

Last fall, the agency designated nearly 3.7 million acres as critical habitat in Oregon, Washington and California.

On Jan. 19, three environmental groups announced they will sue the Oregon Department of Forestry. They maintain logging on three state forests is killing or displacing marbled murrelets. State officials say they are taking measures to avoid harming murrelets, conducting about 1,500 surveys for the bird annually and managing forests through a "take avoidance" policy.

Marbled murrelets are robin-sized seabirds that feed in the ocean but lay their eggs on limbs of mature or old growth trees. They are listed as threatened in the three west coast states under the Endangered Species Act.

 --Eric Mortenson