A funny thing happened here in our Northwestern
forest; a giant canard has been shot out of the sky. One of the most
fought over endangered
species in the history of the West, the Spotted Owl, contrary to
popular belief appears to be the victim of an invasive species
from the eastern forest; the culprit, the Barred Owl. The Spotted
Owl is losing territory because the larger, tougher, Barred Owl,
desires it also. Barred Owls are a more adaptable species, being
more flexible, they spread out effectively, and occupy diverse habitats.
Sometimes they interbreed with Spotted Owls creating Spotted-Barred
Owl hybrids.
Is the Barred Owl invasion natural?
Kent Livezey, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
has said: “The
Barred Owl's migration was likely caused by people but not necessarily
from fragmentation
of forests from logging or development, rather, an increase in tree
cover in the center of North America helped along by fire suppression
and tree planting prompted the owl's move west. But, they made it here
under their own steam.” Native Americans also stopped burning
the Great Plains in the 1880’s: an increase of tree density is
the result. This accelerated the tree bridge from the eastern forests
into the Spotted Owl territory of the Northwest.
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Elk in burnt forest. |
This paradoxical development begs the question: what is to be done
about the Barred Owl invasion? Clearly a thorny philosophical issue;
what should be done about an invasive species that's threatening the
fine-feathered icon of environmental movement, their powerful logging
stopping canard? Is the natural environment to be defined as pre-Columbian
or prehuman? This question behind the Barred Owls' westward expansion
is critical. From a public relations standpoint, managing the Barred
Owl to decrease impact on Spotted Owls is problematic. Worse yet is
the ethical dilemma of exonerating the logging industry; an imponderable
sacrilege for the environmental community.
Anti logging hysteria in the name of the Spotted Owl
during the 1980s and 1990s resulted in the cessation of logging on
approximately 22
million acres of national forest land. The closure resulted in the
loss of 130,000 jobs and the closing of over 900 saw mills of the Northwestern
forest.
Here on the Caribou-Targhee and Bridger Teton National
Forests logging has all but disappeared. A valuable renewable resource,
used by us
all, is no longer harvested. A noble trade of the settlers of our
region and their progeny has nearly disappeared, a victim of
unethical junk
science.
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Firefighters risking their lives because of your collective recklessness. |
The US House of Representatives passed a new version
of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on September 29, 2005. The updated
version requires
better science. Under the existing scheme, the government only
has to use best available science, which often manifests itself
as the
best available science desired by the elite environmentalists.
The new Act, if passed by the Senate, would abolish
the critical habitat set aside requirement. It would create a bigger
role for
effected local
citizenry, state, and local governments. It would require best science
be used, and all science to be peer reviewed to avoid the ethical transgressions
of the past. A peer review by a team of outside experts will bring
integrity to the process and remove the cloud from the ESA. Predictably
the environmental community objects to any change in the law.
Logging was the scapegoat hastily blamed by environmentalists
for the decline of Spotted Owl; clearly, logging may no longer be
considered
its demise. The loss of the 130,000 logging jobs and the closing
of the 900 sawmills has devastated to the economies of logging
communities.
The size and ferocity of our wildfires of the past decade have been
a direct result of the environmental community crying wolf about
the Spotted Owl which brought to a screeching halt an industry
that thinned
our forests with very little financial help from our government.
The Sierra Club, and like-minded
corporatephobes, in the aftermath of the massive fires of 2002
insists the way to thin
our forest is
to pay thinning contractors billions out of the U.S. treasury to remove
vegetation with little market value. The moral and fiscally responsible
course of action is to reverse the wrong that was perpetrated in the
name of the Spotted Owl. We should fire up our logging mills in St.
Anthony ID, Dubois WY, etc. We should re-deploy our tree fallers, haulers,
and skidder operators into our woods; a smart, market based, solution
to restore our forest’s productivity while restoring economic
salvation for logging communities and reducing fire danger throughout
the west.
I wrote this fifteen years ago and now we are paying the price. Oh, there have been many ringing the bell but few care to listen.
