Charles Bergman, Slate. Relevant to GSS A New World View chapter 3.
Excerpt: ...the spotted owl may be the most controversial bird in the
country. ...Twenty years ago, it was a national symbol for one of the
defining environmental battles of the 20th century—the fight over
whether to log or preserve old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.
Now the spotted owl faces a new and even more desperate battle, one that
has it staring straight into the face of extinction. The new threat
comes not from people but from an invasion of its own cousin—the
aggressive and highly adaptable barred owl—into the spotted owl’s last
territories. The future for spotted owls currently looks so bleak that
wildlife managers in the Pacific Northwest have proposed a desperate
plan: They want to kill thousands of barred owls. ...On June 26, 1990,
the northern spotted owl was listed as threatened under the Endangered
Species Act. Several studies had clearly linked the spotted owl’s
decline to the logging of old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.
...research has affirmed and illuminated the species’ heavy dependence
on towering old-growth forests. ...President Clinton called for a forest
summit that led to the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, protecting both the
owl and the region’s spectacular old-growth forests. ...Loggers
complained bitterly about the spotted owl, but the truth is,
...harvesting at previous levels was no longer sustainable. ...There
just weren’t that many trees left to log. ...On the Olympic Peninsula,
...there were 150 spotted owls in 1992. In 2009, just 13. In Dale
Herter’s study area in the Cascades, there were 127 owls in the 1990s.
Now, he says, there may not be that many in the whole state of
Washington. The ... barred owl ... was once found only in the East, but
over the past several decades, barred owls made their way across the
prairies. The first barred owl was reported in Washington in 1965. In
Oregon, 1974. In California, 1981…. Read the full article: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/animal_forecast/2013/02/spotted_owl_vs_barred_owl_will_the_forest_service_shoot_one_species_to_save.html |
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