U.S. Agency Denies Federal Protection for California Spotted Owl

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday decided against granting the California spotted owl protection under the Endangered Species Act, saying that there is not enough evidence that the bird’s habitat is sufficiently threatened.

At the same time, the agency said that a U.S. Forest Service proposal to greatly increase logging in the national forests of the Sierra Nevada could substantially reduce habitat for the bird.

“We are very aware of the planning efforts now underway by the Forest Service,” said Patricia Foulk, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service. “But we were under a court order to get this done. We didn’t have the ability to wait and see what comes out of the planning effort. I would be very surprised if things started really changing, that we didn’t immediately receive another petition” to list the bird as endangered.

The Fish and Wildlife Service considers plants and animals for listing as threatened or endangered after internal analysis or after receiving petitions from concerned groups. A few environmental groups had already sued the Fish and Wildlife Service to compel the agency to conduct a study of the owl. That study led to Monday’s decision.

Conservation groups said it was the sixth time in six weeks that Fish and Wildlife had denied a petition to list an endangered species. Five of those animals, like the owl, are found in California.

Conservationists were especially critical of basing the decision on current forest management practices in light of the Forest Service’s recent move to allow extensive logging in old- growth Sierra Nevada forests.

The California spotted owl’s prime habitat is in the densely forested old stands of trees, some of which the Forest Service proposes to cut or thin to reduce fire risk. That policy essentially would abandon a forest management policy known as the Sierra Nevada Framework, which was fashioned to preserve spotted owl habitat.

“It’s patently ridiculous to rely on the framework when we know the Forest Service is going to gut it,” said Noah Greenwald, a Center for Biological Diversity biologist who filed a petition in April 2000 to list the owl.

But the Forest Service countered that to save the owl’s habitat it must thin some trees to alleviate fire danger.

“The changes we are envisioning are designed to do the same thing that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants, that is to continue protecting the California spotted owl so that it does not have to be listed,” said Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes.

Foulk said Fish and Wildlife biologists will reassess the owl’s habitat when the logging plans are announced in September.

“The owl and the Fish and Wildlife Service are between a rock and a hard place,” she said. “Bottom line is -- we’re saying today it doesn’t warrant protection based on the criteria we had to work with. Certainly I don’t think this is over, nor should it be.”