Mexican Spotted Owl Stirs Southwest Debate : Wildlife: New Mexico loggers fear U.S. proposal to protect cousin of northern spotted owl will cost them their livelihood. Final decision is due from government in November.

In a story familiar to residents of the Pacific Northwest, loggers in New Mexico are afraid more timber-cutting restrictions aimed at protecting a species of owl will cost them their livelihood.

Northwest logging jobs are in danger because of the northern spotted owl. In New Mexico, the bird in question is the Mexican spotted owl.

Federal authorities are split on whether the Mexican owl faces as severe a threat as its northern cousin and needs more protection than it now gets.

But residents of Reserve, a struggling timber town in western New Mexico, say further efforts to protect the bird would doom their town.

“It’s a way of life that’s threatened,” said Chamber of Commerce President Alan Robinson, a rancher.

Logging is the only industry in Reserve, tucked away in a wooded valley 15 miles from the Arizona line.

The population has fallen from about 440 a few years ago to near 300. Reserve’s 60-year-old sawmill may shut down at the end of this year, depending on how much timber it is allowed to harvest, said mill manager Mike Duncan.

Some stores have closed, school enrollment has dropped and the schools’ share of timber revenue fell to one-third the $300,000 received two years ago.

Timber men blame owl restrictions. However, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Tom Smylie said the industry is hurting not just because of the owl, but because big timber is dwindling.

His agency listed the northern owl in 1990 as threatened by loss of its habitat, and it proposed the same listing in October for the Mexican owl. A final decision is due Nov. 4.

But the Forest Service maintains the Mexican owl isn’t threatened. It contends its existing guidelines--restricting logging on 1,500 to 2,000 acres per nesting pair of owls--are adequate protection.

The owls look somewhat alike, hoot alike and share an appetite for mice. But while the slightly darker northern owl is said to need the mossy old-growth forests of the Northwest, the Forest Service says the Mexican owl inhabits woods harvested 30 years ago in New Mexico, which has no comparable old growth.

“The owl has had to learn, by the very nature of the Southwest, to adapt to habitat,” said Forest Service biologist Rod McClanahan. “We’re finding owls in habitats where nobody ever dreamed you’d find spotted owls.”

The Forest Service estimates 2,800 Mexican spotted owls live in the Southwest, mostly in New Mexico and Arizona. The Fish and Wildlife estimate is 2,160--about 850 of them in New Mexico, including 319 nesting pairs.

There are an estimated 3,000 nesting pairs of northern spotted owls in the Northwest, where about 31,000 timber jobs are threatened by owl restrictions.

The issue has aroused anger on both sides. Duncan, the mill manager, said 70 spikes were found embedded in logs during the past month. Spikes that eluded the sawmill’s metal detector damaged a 36-foot loop blade, he said.

Forest Service agents and state police are investigating.

Sam Hitt, founder of Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians, said he opposes such tactics. He said they are superfluous because sawmills will close anyway for want of timber.