The Spotted Owl Is No Pussycat : But the real issue is forest management, not endangered species

When they were commissioned to design a grand home, Pasadena’s brilliant architects the brothers Charles and Henry Greene went to the Pacific Northwest before they started building to select standing redwoods for the lumber. That was in the late 1800s, and it must never have occurred to Greene & Greene that in less than a century most of the ancient forests they visited would be gone.

Even when that became clear, nobody began looking for ways to save these towering wooden remnants of history until it was too late to force a choice between the trees and towns full of Pacific Northwest families who depend on logging for their livelihood.

The U.S. Forest Service, which sells old trees on federal land to loggers, was among the dawdlers. Because the agency would not stop selling so many old trees, environmental activists took up the cause of the spotted owl, which lives in old forests along the Pacific Coast between Canada and Northern California. When the last tree vanishes, so will the last owl. There is no law against killing endangered forests, but the Endangered Species Act prohibits killing animals under its protection, one being the owl.

Congress passed a law last year forbidding courts to entertain challenges to logging sales just because the spotted owl had not been taken fully into account. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Congress could not tell courts what to do. Among other things, the decision pulled the middle ground out from under the White House, which now must decide whether to allow continued logging.

Our instinct is to save what trees are left. The owl is not the problem. The problem is that irreplaceable forests will vanish in 30 years if logging continues at its present pace.

Nor is the choice between trees and workers. If they were the only options, we’d have to let defense workers go on building Cold War weapons nobody needs. If we make an effort, timber workers, defense workers and others can be retrained and reemployed. Old forests cannot.