Spotted owl habitat slashed as population declines

[davidnc76]

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — The Bush administration has decided the northern spotted owl can get by with less old growth forest habitat as it struggles to make its way off the threatened species list.

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 percent, a reduction of 1.6 million acres. Critical habitat is a requirement of the Endangered Species Act and offers increased protections against logging.

Research shows that spotted owl numbers are dropping by 4 percent annually as a result of logging, wildfires and an invasion of its habitat by the barred owl, a more aggressive East Coast cousin that migrated across Canada and has been working its way south.

Conservation groups said the critical habitat designation and a new plan for restoring owl populations were contrary to the advice of leading scientists and crafted to fulfill a Bush administration promise to the timber industry to increase logging.


http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gCUL6lw2gbGXkT5Kjn7IP28WgyJAD92H5GFG0

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. Bush is slashing and burning on his way out of office.

[cliffordu]

2. I've been in the area they are speaking of - It is magnificent.

It's worth saving...

[mrs_p]

3. the same habitat

he wanted (his logging buddies) to thin to reduce fuel for wildfires. stupid, stupid man doesn't even know that the western cascades are not like the eastern cascades and the fire regimes are completely different. disturbance in old growth forests is usually windstorm or flooding. i could say more, but he would never listen.