Feds to double habitat for spotted owl to 9.6 M acres in California, Oregon and Washington

GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The last building block of the Obama administration's strategy unveiled Wednesday to keep the northern spotted owl from extinction nearly doubles the amount of Northwest national forest land dedicated to protecting the bird by the Bush administration four years ago. ✧ Still, conservation groups that went to court to force the overhaul said key gaps remain, such as an exemption for private forest lands and most state forests. ✧ The full critical habitat plan will not be published until next week, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that 9.6 million acres of Oregon, Washington and Northern California will come under its provisions, almost all of it federal lands. ✧ The amount is down from nearly 14 million acres proposed last February but still exceeds the 5.3 million acres proposed in 2008. The biggest cut came in private timberlands -- 1.3 million acres. State forests covering 271,000 acres remain. ✧ Following a directive last February from the White House, officials revised the latest plan to make room for thinning and logging inside critical habitat to reduce the danger of wildfire and improve the health of forests. Read more at The Willits News... Read More......

Huffman: Wind, timber and hypocrisy in the Pacific Northwest

DC CALLER, 3/9/2012 by Jim Huffman, Law Professor, Lewis & Clark Law School

[Excerpts] [...] In 2009 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the national death toll from wind turbines at 440,000 birds that year alone. ✧ That seems like a lot of birds, particularly for those of us in the Pacific Northwest, where a once-vibrant timber economy has been devastated in a failing effort to save the spotted owl. Read more at DC Caller...

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Candidate Delia Lopez: Common sense on the environment

DELIA LOPEZ, 2010 Republican Candidate for Oregon's Third Congressional District, POSITIONS/ENVIRONMENT - "Look into the spotted owl and many other of the birds that have been listed on the threatened or endangered species list. Years ago I cut out and copied newspaper articles for then president Clinton and 2 other of the top EPA and Forest Service heads. They were finding spotted owls emaciated in surprising numbers! There were at least 5 articles where they were found dead and autopsy showed they starved. There were articles stating they found spotted owls nesting in 30 year old trees, they found a nest in a Roseburg K-Mart sign! I had them nesting in my back yard (they have a distinctive whoo) Also an article on the effective rodenticide the federal forest department had been using for 26 years!! It stopped rodents from killing the small newly planted trees, and how effective it was at killing the rodents. I made 3 copies of each and sent them off with a letter. I got a BS thank you letter back from Clinton. They are still using the rodenticide! The spotted owls numbers are still declining. You will not survive without food, spotted owls eat rodents, rodenticides kill rodents. Birds that have no food, do not reproduce, they die. Shutting down the forests to logging has not helped the Spotted Owls nor improved the heath of our forests." Read more on the environment, forest health, jobs, carbon sequestering and more.

Best wishes to Delia Lopez in her campaign to replace Earl Blumenauer. --bc Read More......

GT: Federal judge orders revised spotted owl plan

CORVALLIS GAZETTE-TIMES, 9/2/2010 - See article at the GT... Read More......

Oregon humans in peril but spotted owl safe (or not)

CORVALLIS GAZETTE-TIMES, 7/17/2009 by Jeff Barnard (AP Environmental writer) - Obama administration scraps Bush logging plan

The Illustrated Owl: Barn, Barred, & Great Horned by Denny Rogers, Lori Corbett
Page 84 - BARRED OWL FACTS - Diet and Habitat
[Excerpt] "The barred owl is abundant in the deep woods and swamp forests of the Southeast but is slowly expanding its range westward. Its counterpart in the West is the spotted owl, however, the more aggressive barred owl is gradually taking over the territory of the spotted owl, as well as interbreeding. The genetics of these two owls are so similar that many believe the spotted is merely a subspecies of the barred."

Related:
Posted 7/8/2009 - Judge overturns Bush administration logging rule
National Center for Conservation Science & Policy: The Spotted Owl's New Nemesis Read More......

Judge overturns Bush administration logging rule

SEATTLE TIMES, 7/1/2009 by Jeff Barnard, AP Environmental Writer: GRANTS PASS, Ore. — A federal judge has struck down the Bush administration's change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests. ∴ U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests. ∴ "I am hopeful that this is the last nail in the coffin to (President George W.) Bush's assault on our public forests," said Pete Frost, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, which represented plaintiffs in one of two cases challenging the rule. Read more at the Seattle Times... Read More......