Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Team Hosts Open House

The Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Team will host an open house August 9, 2006, in Portland, Oregon, to receive information from stakeholders and the public on issues pertaining to the recovery of the northern spotted owl.

The open house will feature two sessions: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Both sessions will be in Meeting Room F150-151 of the Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Boulevard.

Both sessions will begin with a presentation by the recovery team on the recovery planning process and the team’s progress so far. The afternoon session will feature presentations from invited representatives of state and tribal agencies, the timber industry and the conservation community, who have been asked for their views of the issues they would like to see the recovery team address in drafting a recovery plan. If time allows, the session will be opened to comments by the public following the presentations.

The evening session will be open for public comments, following the recovery team’s presentation. No stakeholder presentations will be given during the evening session.

The sessions are not public hearings so no formal testimony will be accepted but attendees will be able to provide written comments or speak informally to the team.

The northern spotted owl is listed as a threatened species protected under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has convened a team of government and non-government scientific and technical experts to develop a recovery plan for the owl. Team members were selected based on nominations from federal land management agencies, the governors of Oregon, Washington and California, the timber industry and the conservation community.

A draft recovery plan is expected to be released to the public in mid-November 2006, followed by a 60-day public comment period. A final plan is expected by November 2007.

The recovery team is tasked with producing a plan that identifies goals, criteria and management actions for the survival and recovery of the northern spotted owl on federal and non-federal land. The recovery plan will be peer-reviewed before being finalized.

 Updates on the recovery plan development are available at http://www.fws.gov/pacific/ecoservices/endangered/recovery/R1SpeciesInfoLinks/NSORecoveryPlanning.htm

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses 545 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resources offices and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign and Native American tribal governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Assistance program, which distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.