Demonstrators Protest Sale of Timber Grove

About two dozen demonstrators filed into the Milwaukie, Ore., office of the Times Mirror Land & Timber Co. on Wednesday to protest the sale of wildlife-rich old-growth timber for the lucrative export market.

Demonstrator Lydia Avery of Corvallis, Ore., urged the company to spare the grove, near Opal Creek and the Bull of the Woods Wilderness east of Salem, to provide habitat for the rare northern spotted owl and preserve the site of a historic mining claim.

Times Mirror Land & Timber Co. is owned by Los Angeles-based Times Mirror Co., which also owns The Times.

The subsidiary optioned the property’s timber rights to a Milwaukie man some time ago, Times Mirror Co. Executive Vice President Charles R. Redmond said, and the option is valid through September.

“Right now, we can’t do anything because the option is still out there,” he said. “If the guy decides not to cut it--and he may not, considering the ruckus--we’ll have to decide what to do.”

Redmond said he only recently learned of the potential value of the parcel as a wildlife habitat and said the company will consider ways to save the habitat, if possible, once it regains control of the property.

U.S. Forest Service biologist Steve Smith said the land, described by the company as 65 acres, is close to three spotted owl habitat areas. Logging is prohibited in designated habitat areas of federal forests to preserve the owl’s living space.

Smith said Times Mirror’s land itself is not restricted, but its use as a timber source may be limited in the future if the owl is found to be threatened with extinction and eligible for Endangered Species Act protection. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is studying that issue, which also could restrict logging on millions of other acres from Canada to San Francisco Bay.

The controversial land was left over after Times Mirror sold its Publishers Paper Co. subsidiary in 1986. Times Mirror retained 267,000 acres of timber in the deal but has since sold most of it to streamline operations. Redmond said about 2,000 acres--mostly in small, scattered parcels--remain to be sold.