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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Bush Administration Cuts Habitat for Spotted Owl

It's a bad week to be a forest-dweller. Yesterday, Reg•Watch blogged about the Bush administration's proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act that would make it easier for big development projects to move forward without due consideration to vulnerable species.

Today, headlines bear bad news for the threatened northern spotted owl. The owl was listed as threatened under ESA years ago. Now, the Bush administration's Fish and Wildlife Service — an agency within the Interior Department which released the controversial proposal covered yesterday — wants to reduce protections for the owl. The Associated Press reports:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that the federal forest land designated as critical habitat for the owl in Washington, Oregon and Northern California would be cut by 23%, a reduction of 1.6 million acres. Critical habitat is a requirement of the Endangered Species Act and offers increased protections against logging.

Endangered and threatened species need special protections for their habitats in order to recover and thrive. Even though the northern spotted owl has enjoyed a critical habitat area since the 1990s, its numbers are struggling to climb. "Research shows that spotted owl numbers are dropping by 4% annually as a result of logging, wildfires and an invasion of its habitat by the barred owl, a more aggressive East Coast cousin," according to AP.

It's as though the Bush administration is employing hard-nosed management techniques to spur the owl toward recovery. As a species, the owl is underperforming (down four percent annually, not even accounting for inflation), so the administration will send it a message by cutting benefits. Next it will be the parking space, then the key to the executive wash room. Fear can be strong motivation.

Of course, the northern spotted owl is unlikely to turn things around in a smaller protected habitat. According to AP, "Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resources Council in Portland, said the recovery plan and critical habitat would make it more difficult to thin overgrown forests to reduce the risks to wildlife and to promote the old-growth characteristics the owls favor."