Owl Designated ‘Threatened’; Impact in Doubt

Citing “compelling evidence” the bird is at risk, federal officials Friday declared the northern spotted owl to be threatened with extinction, but postponed until next Tuesday the crucial decision on what to do about it.

Protecting the owl under the Endangered Species Act could profoundly affect the Northwest, putting millions of acres of forest off-limits to loggers while throwing perhaps 28,000 people out of work. The decision to protect the owl will become effective July 23.

Last-minute scrambling to soften the impact led to the delay in announcing a formal protection plan, which will almost certainly require significant reductions in recent record-high timber harvests in Oregon, Northern California and Washington.

Reaction from Capitol Hill, environmentalists and timber industry representatives was swift--and, typically, confrontational. But the mood in the small timber communities most likely to be affected was one of resignation.

“We now have two threatened species, the owl and the thousands of families that depend on our forests for the food on their tables,” Rep. Doug Bosco (D-Occidental) said. “Congress must act this summer to ensure that survival of the owl goes hand in hand with the survival of our North Coast way of life.”

Northwest representatives are drafting bills to reform the Endangered Species Act, but they conceded that any attempt to weaken the law faces an uphill fight. Rep. Sid W. Morrison (R-Washington) said the Friday ruling is “the most far-reaching decision ever made under the act,” which he argued was “never intended to have such broad geographical or economic application.”

Bill Arthur, a Sierra Club spokesman in Seattle, shot back that the “long-awaited listing” simply “reaffirms what biologists have known for some time--the northern spotted owl and the ancient forests in which it resides are in serious danger of becoming extinct.”

“Now that the owl is listed,” said Andy Kerr, director of the Oregon Natural Resources Council, “we are going to be carefully watching the agencies to see that they protect it. . . . If they are not complying with the Endangered Species Act because of politics--pressure from the Oregon delegation or the ‘Environment President’--we will sue.”

Industry representatives did not even wait for a preservation plan to be announced. Mark E. Rey of the American Forest Resource Alliance came to the Department of the Interior Building on Friday to announce that an industry coalition has already mailed a legally required notice of intention to sue.

Among the potential issues that may be challenged by industry--a final decision will have to wait for the government’s proposal to be revealed--is the protection of owls in Northern California. Rey said that birds there show special adaptability to logging, although the government says the region suffers one of the worst declines in the owl population, 5% annually.

News of the spotted owl decision spread quickly throughout the timber communities of the Northwest, where people have been expecting bad tidings for months.

Sue Reynolds, 26, whose family has logged the area around Sweet Home, Ore., for generations said that regardless of what happens Tuesday it will only worsen a bad situation.

“Whatever the details are, we know they’re not going to be good,” she said. “It’s just a matter of how bad is bad going to be.”

She and her husband have been talking for a year about leaving Sweet Home and finding jobs elsewhere but have always put off a decision. Now she’s afraid they will have to do more than just talk.

“We know there isn’t going to be an end no matter what they do,” said Steve Rood, manager of the Willamette Industries Plywood Mill. “They are just going to keep on pushing till there is nothing left.”

Sweet Home Mayor David Holley said his town, which in the last two years has lost three of the six mills that employed the bulk of his constituents, will survive whatever plan is proposed. “This town is too tough to die,” he said.

The decision to add the spotted owl to the list of 350 plants and animals protected by the Endangered Species Act came after three years of often bitter, sometimes violent wrangling in the courts, the Congress, the forests and in the streets of many small timber-dependent rural communities that face a future of severe economic hardships.

The extent of those hardships, however, will remain unclear until the government says what it plans to do. It has wide discretion in how to save the bird.

It could, for example, halt logging in all likely owl habitat--not only old forests known to have owls now, but also second-growth forests with certain old-growth characteristics that could host support in the future.

At the other extreme, the government could convene an Endangered Species Committee, known informally as the “God Committee.” The seven-member committee could exempt the spotted owl from protection if logging was essential and no “reasonable and prudent” alternatives existed.

Considered more likely is a plan similar to one recommended in April by an interagency task force of leading experts from Fish and Wildlife and the three big public land agencies--the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Park Service.

The task force recommended that as much as one-third of the Northwest’s national forests be preserved in their virgin state to give the owl room to forage and mate. Such bold measures are needed, they said, because heavy logging has pushed the species close to extinction.

The economic impact of such recommendations would include the loss of billions of dollars worth of timber and an estimated 28,000 jobs, as well has hundreds of millions of dollars in federal revenue and taxes and fees shared with counties for schools and roads.

“Locking up these lands will result in record unemployment in the state,” said Evelyn Badger of the Oregon Lands Coalition, a grass-roots loggers’ lobby in Portland. “Unemployment brings poverty, crime, drug abuse, child abuse and a host of other ills to communities.”

Such high stakes have created great political pressures.

White House Chief of Staff John Sununu and domestic policy adviser Roger Porter personally weighed the political fallout this week. Delaying announcement of a rescue plan until Tuesday gives them time to explore options.

Limiting their actions is the law, which forbids federal agencies to take any action that jeopardizes protected species. Endangered species are those in imminent danger of extinction, while threatened species will become endangered unless protected. Both are protected equally.

Bending the law is just one way to help loggers in danger of displacement. Restricting log exports is another. Kerr, the environmentalist, said President Bush has the authority, under the Export Administration Act, to simply ban them.

Log exports--the sale of unmilled timber to other countries--have cut jobs at sawmills, so banning exports should theoretically make more logs available to domestic mills and compensate for timber preserved for owls.

Environmentalists note that the projected job losses attributed to the owl are not unlike declines experienced in the last seven years because of log exports and sawmill automation. Sacrificing the owl would only postpone the pain--at the cost of irreplaceable forests.

Old growth forests once were considered decadent because trees in them did not grow as fast as new trees. But Forest Service scientists now believe ancient forests are great assets because they host a variety of rare plants and animals while acting as a repository for plants and animals that may, for example, some day lead to new and better medicines.

This is little comfort to third-generation loggers who see their jobs, futures and families jeopardized by what they perceive as some strangers’ sentiments for an owl.

“The preservationists have done their deadly work,” said Valerie Johnson, of the Oregon Lands Coalition. “I only wish we could give them the job of delivering this heartbreaking news to the . . . people with bills to pay and mouths to feed.”

Times staff writers Ashley Dunn in Sweet Home, Ore., and Michael Ross in Washington contributed to this story.

BACKGROUND

In the past, loggers cut more trees on private land than they planted, forcing them to rely now on national forests. But such forests also are used for recreation and wildlife habitat, which conflict with logging. Most national forests contain old growth, which is particularly hospitable to rare species, such as the northern spotted owl. Saving the owl is thus likely to cause a basic reassessment of timber management. This would affect the price and availability of lumber, paper and other wood products--and may alter the nation’s balance of trade, since the U.S. now exports logs but could soon be forced to import more from Canada.

THE NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL

Scientific name: Strix occidentalis caurina

Wing span: 42 inches

Height: 16 1/2 to 19 1/2 inches

Description: Dark brown with white spots and white mottling on breast

Habitat: Old-growth and mature coniferous forests and densely wooded canyons

Prey: Flying squirrels, wood rats, rabbits and other small mammals; birds and insects

Other characteristics: Primarily nocturnal, territorial and usually unwary of humans

Estimated population: 1,743 nesting pairs on public lands

SOURCES: Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds, Western Region, and Report of the Interagency Scientific Report