Nick
Smith: Reversal on habitat a missed opportunity for spotted
owls, people
by Nick Smith American Forest Resource Council
It’s often said
the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and
over and expecting a different result. This describes the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s approach to the northern
spotted owl. Rather than addressing the true threats to the
species and its habitat, the agency opted to perpetuate an
ineffective and political critical habitat policy that has
only succeeded in crippling the economy of our western
rural, timber-dependent communities.
Critical
habitat for the northern spotted owl was originally
designated nearly 30 years ago, a single-species management
policy that restricted logging on millions of acres of
federal land. The policy upended the original purpose of the
Northwest Forest Plan that sought to balance multiple uses
of these forests.
Land
management restrictions within critical habitat made it more
challenging for federal
land managers to effectively implement forest thinning and
other forest management activities to mitigate the risks of
severe wildfire and forest disease.
Years
later, a federal report found that between 1994 and 2013,
over 80
percent of owl habitat loss
during this period was due to severe wildfire and forest
disease, not timber harvest. Spotted owl populations
continue to reach all-time lows, largely due to competition
from the barred owl.
Recent
science has confirmed the spotted owl is unable
to persist on landscapes
impacted by high-severity wildfire. The agency’s own recovery
plan for the species points
to the need for active forest management to reduce these
risks. But this is not happening. Oregon’s 2020 Labor Day
fires burned over
560 square miles of
suitable nesting and roosting habitat.
Considering the data, one would think the agency would
change course toward more effective strategies for
conserving the species, including revising its critical
habitat policy in favor of more forest management that can help
reduce habitat loss. The
government could more aggressively expand its barred owl
removal program that has proven
effective in arresting
population decline.
Another
reason to change course is that at least 1.7 million acres
of spotted owl critical habitat is not even suitable habitat
for the species. One economic
study found the designation
of uninhabited lands has resulted in economic losses of up
to $1.2 billion to our rural economies. A unanimous 2018
U.S. Supreme Court decision found
the Endangered Species Act does not authorize the government
to designate lands as critical habitat unless it is in fact
habitat for the species.
Just days
before President Joe Biden took office, the Fish & Wildlife
Service adopted a new critical habitat designation that
removed this non-habitat and would
have allowed public land
managers to reduce wildfire risks on more federal forest
lands in the Pacific Northwest. This new approach could have
resulted in better outcomes for both owls and people.
Yet
months later, the agency reverted to its old policy, meaning
that over nine million acres of federal land, an area larger
than the state of Maryland, will continue to be prohibitive
to active forest management activities that can actually
help restore and conserve the species’ habitat. This
critical habitat does not include millions of acres already
set aside as designated wilderness areas and national parks,
even though spotted owl populations have declined
in these areas too.
Until the Fish
& Wildlife Service addresses the real threats to the spotted
owl, we will continue to see more wildfires, more
destruction of communities and habitat, and continued
declines in this species. This is the very definition of
insanity.
— Nick Smith is public
affairs director for the American Forest Resource Council
and also serves as executive director of Healthy Forests,
Healthy Communities, a nonprofit that advocates for active
forest management on federal lands.
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