[Dave Workman]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008109742_spottedowl13m.html As spotted owl's numbers keep falling, some fear it's doomed By Warren Cornwall Seattle Times environment reporter The northern spotted owl — an endangered icon that spurred a rescue effort so sweeping it brought old-growth logging to a virtual standstill in the Northwest — is now closer than ever to extinction. Fourteen years after old-growth logging was banned on most federal lands to protect the owls, their numbers are falling year after year. While there is disagreement over how bad it could get, some are contemplating the virtual disappearance of a bird elevated to sainthood by environmentalists and hung in effigy by loggers. The situation is particularly bad in Washington, where the rate at which owls are found at nesting sites has fallen by nearly half since 1994. Scientists blame the decline largely on the invasion of a tougher owl and the loss of much habitat to decades of logging. "It's not looking very good," said Eric Forsman, of the U.S. Forest Service, a pre-eminent spotted-owl scientist. "The populations seem to be gradually going downhill, and it's not clear if or when that's going to stop." The decline of the birds is forcing a rethinking of long-held strategies to save the spotted owl. Ideas under consideration include the distasteful prospect of shotgunning one owl species to save another.

[Jeepasaurusrex]

What they were doing obviously was not working.

[Snow_Knot]

[Hulksmash]

Or maybe it a tougher invasive owl

[joker]

[Backpacker Joe]

[touron]

....and K-mart signs? Or was that a Blue Light Legend? Can the decline of the spotted owl be linked to the decline of K-mart?

[DIYSteve]

It's easy to blame the demise of the spotted owl on the barred owl, but it's a flawed theory or, at least, an incomplete theory. The fragmentation of lowland old growth forests presented an opportunity for the barred owls to come in a push out the spotted owls. As most of you know, the ESA was designed to protect habitat, and the spotted owl is an indicator species, evidence that the large contiguous lowland old growth forests have been destroyed -- as if we did not already know that. Unlike montane, sub-alpine and alpine areas -- many of which are protected by wilderness designation -- there are few big lowland forests (ONP is the big exception, Wild Sky too) that are protected. The lowland old growth forests in BC are getting hacked down at an alarming rate. It's only a matter of time before the spotted owl is extinct, a fate accelerated by hybridization with barred owls. The march of modern humanity continues.

[Quark]

One reason spotted owls need old growht because their nests are on the tops of snags, which aren't readily available in younger stands. The ingredients a spotted owl needs to survive are within old growth and can't be found in younger stands. How a spotted owl - or any animal - hides itself from danger, what it eats, the materials used for nests, are by habit - for instance, if a lungwort is needed to line the nest and a lungwort can't be found, the owl has no lungwort. If pollution isn't filtered enough in a young stand of trees, perhaps and animal can't adapt (old growth is an excellent filter of pollution). Even the compsition of the soil and air is different in younger forests than old growth. I read in a book about Jack Ward Thomas, the Forest Service researcher on the spotted owl project, then Forest Service chief during the spotted owl controversy, that a pair of spotted owls needs a few thousand acres to survive. With the forests being fragmented such as they are, it's difficult for spotted owls to make a living. It's heart-breaking.

[joker]

Thanks for providing some good analysis, Quark and BigSteve.

[Scrooge]

Big Steve included this little gem, almost as an afterthought.

[treeswarper]

The ones that are living in old growth should be ok. Facilities for milling that size of logs are going extinct. I have seen a spotted owl sitting in a Ponderosa Pine up in the Twisp River area. I have always told people that they shouldn't be wanting to shoot the owls. They should instead be working on a captive breeding program and release them EVERYWHERE so they wouldn't be endangered anymore. But nobody listened.

[treeswarper]

[NWtrax]

ISO: spotted owl thanks mouse.

[mtnmouse]