GUEST VIEWPOINT
Model made of mythical owls
A flawed computer model led to nonsensical restrictions on timber management in Oregon
PUBLISHED:
On June 26 a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the Bureau of Land Management to comply with the law and offer more timber for sale in Southwest Oregon. The judge also found that federal agencies had broken the law by not adhering to rulemaking requirements in instituting the Owl Estimation Methodology, a flawed model for quantifying the impact of federal timber harvests on the spotted owl.
Most of the media coverage has rightly focused on the judge’s order to sell more timber. The little coverage of the owl estimation portion of the ruling has failed to describe the absolute lunacy underpinning a computer model that led to nonsensical restrictions on timber management throughout Western Oregon. It deserves greater scrutiny from the public and our elected officials.
What if an agent of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service knocked on your door and told you that you could not harvest any of the vegetables in your garden because it is the home of a threatened slug? You know first-hand that none of these slugs exist in your garden, so your mouth drops when the agent insists that a very sophisticated computer model has determined that your garden is definitely the home of the slug.
Wondering what the consequences of harvesting your vegetables might be, you ask, “What would happen if I ate one of my carrots?”
He then becomes serious and tells you, “We would have to prosecute you for ‘taking’ a threatened species.”
Not believing your ears, you say, “Are you telling me if I ate one of my carrots, I would face federal charges for ‘taking’ a slug that no one has ever seen in my garden?”
“Yes,” he replies.
Wondering if this could get any more bizarre, you ask, “What would happen if I ate another carrot tomorrow?”
He answers, “You would be charged for taking another threatened species.”
For clarification, you ask, “So I would be charged for taking two slugs for eating two carrots even though no one has ever seen one of these slugs in my garden?”
His reply: “Yes.”
Following this, you wonder, “I have 50 carrots, 25 heads of lettuce, 25 zucchini and 25 summer squash. Would I be charged with ‘taking’ 125 slugs if I picked all my vegetables?”
He calmly replies, “Yes.”
Wouldn’t you be outraged at such a ridiculous situation? We were — which is why we joined the lawsuit challenging the use of the Owl Estimation Methodology to determine how many spotted owls would be “taken” due to harvesting trees on our publicly owned federal lands.
None of us wants any species to go extinct. Federal forest managers consult with the Fish & Wildlife Service to ensure that their actions will not jeopardize a threatened species. The owl methodology was developed following a different court decision requiring the agencies to either quantify the amount of “take” that would occur from an activity or to disclose that quantifying the “take” is impossible.
“Take” in this case is not the killing of an owl, but rather a disruption that somehow might “harm” the species. Rather than deciding to disclose why quantifying “take” for the spotted owl is impossible (which it is), the Fish & Wildlife Service developed a very sophisticated computer model built by the very best scientists to spit out a number the computer says is how many owls would be taken due to harvesting trees.
On many occasions, this model creates spotted owl home ranges where no owls have ever been found. The Fish & Wildlife Service then requires these acres to be protected the same as those lands that are occupied by owls. Most of these mythical home ranges are created in areas that are already below the habitat conditions the service has deemed to be necessary to avoid “take,” so the harvest of one tree will be deemed as a “take.”
Just as with the phantom slugs in your garden, under the Owl Estimation Methodology thousands of phantom owls can be taken that no one has ever found and are not known to even exist.
While the owl estimation madness has now been stopped, the Fish & Wildlife Service has created another “very sophisticated computer model built by the very best scientists” to declare that more than 9 million acres of federal land is “critical” spotted owl habitat, even though half of this land has been identified as either unsuitable or marginal habitat.
A lawsuit has been filed challenging this decision — but ultimately our elected leaders must step up to put an end to these flawed policies that threaten our forests and communities.
Ross Mickey of Eugene is the federal forest manager for the American Forest Resource Council.
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