Logging for spotted owls

Logging for spotted owls

Published: Thursday, July 26, 2012, 10:00 AM     Updated: Thursday, July 26, 2012, 10:52 AM

 By The Oregonian Editorial Board

View full sizeAP PhotoA spotted owl in the Deschutes National Forest near Camp Sherman, in 2003.
The latest research finding that logging can help the beleaguered spotted owl is certain to provoke controversy. The owl's protection collapsed federal logging on Oregon's forests over the past two decades, sinking many rural economies. Yet the owl continues to be in decline. 

Meanwhile, our under-harvested forests pile up with dead and diseased trees, brush and tinder that threaten to explode into catastrophic fire. That was the case with the Biscuit fire, which in 2002 consumed nearly a half-million acres in the Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon and northern California. While people and structures were threatened for days, at least a dozen known activity areas for the spotted owl were wiped out. 

Now comes a team from Oregon State University and Michigan State University arguing partial harvest -- call it heavy thinning but not clear-cutting -- acts to reduce fuel loads and set a forest up for improved habitat that will support more species, the spotted owl among them. But the result is not instant. 

John Bailey, an associate professor in OSU's College of Forestry, explained to The Oregonian that even limited logging operations act to clear the ground and open up the canopy prized by owls, temporarily creating unsuitable habitat while making the forest less fire-prone. But over several decades, "the balance flips," Bailey said, meaning the canopy closes up on a healthier, fire-resistant forest that is far more attractive to owls. 

What's this mean now? Oregon needs to get going in its forests. 

While no study by itself can be the ticket that opens forests up for heavy logging, the OSU findings suggest a middle-of-the-road sweet spot for logging levels that could serve several purposes: restore jobs in cash-strapped rural communities, reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, and create healthier forests that eventually support more species such as the spotted owl. 

But not all forests are created equal when it comes to fire risk. Those east of the Cascades, situated in dry heat and more vulnerable to insect infestation and disease, become especially dangerous with the pileup of fuels. Yet several westside forests are considered dry, too, and they would be good candidates for stepped up harvests. 

It turns out a little thinning here and a little thinning there won't do. Computer models the OSU researchers employed calculated that at least 20 percent of any fire-prone landscape would need robust thinning to significantly reduce fire risk while creating, over time, more habitat preferred by spotted owls. 

Researchers in California previously demonstrated that not all fire is considered a threat to spotted owl habitat, and the new findings do not dispute that. But the OSU report at its simplest shows that big, clear-cut logging operations and big, explosive fire are bad things for bird habitat. 

Knowing only that much, it makes sense to launch more of the moderate harvest levels the OSU study finds will reduce fire risk in fire-prone forests while creating a happier home for the Northwest's signal species in decline.