Orians states that "the best analyses of the
spotted owl's viability have shown that as habitat declines, due to fragmentation, the owl's population finds it increasingly difficult to replenish itself," he fails to explain that he is describing the results of assumptions built into mathematical models.
Using two major controversies as examples, the Tellico Dam/Snail Darter Supreme Court case and the
spotted owl threat to logging in the Northwest, Petersen shows how litigation and judicial decision making have played a large role in the modern environmental movement.
While some blamed a
spotted owl, the simple fact remains that over-consumption and industry over-cutting had found them at the end of the frontier.
For example, after listing the Mexican
spotted owl, the Center shut down logging in the Southwest for 24 months; it's now at 84 percent of historic levels.
Under former Interior Secretary James Watt, Cason gave millions of taxpayer dollars to the mining industry in a sweetheart land deal; authorized a rule making national parks and wildlife areas vulnerable to strip mining; and claimed that the
spotted owl would go on the endangered species list "over my dead body." Joining Cason are a number of folks from the "Wise Use Movement," a group of industry types and private landowners pushing for laws that would require the government to reimburse landowners for the impact of environmental regulation.
In addition to providing shelter, the treetop vantage points led the activists to discover nests of the red tree vole, a favorite food of the threatened northern
spotted owl. After the find was confirmed by federal biologists, 51 of the site's 96 acres were closed to logging--and further nests located by the treesitters may spare the remainder.
WTS: Honey, should we take the Land Cruiser or the Suburban to the "Save the Blind Albino Unwed
Spotted Owl" fundraiser?
It turns out she was the new Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, so it was good that I hadn't suggested the president probably had poached
spotted owl eggs for breakfast.
Federal regulators have decided that two groups are threatened: the subspecies known as the northern and Mexican
spotted owls. Biologists have petitioned to add the third subspecies, the California
spotted owl.
A northern
spotted owl swoops out of the treetops at twilight in an Oregon forest.
On this topic of the
spotted owl, let's revisit another triumph of the Clinton/Gore "win-win" philosophy.
"Everybody knows" that laws protecting a threatened species, the Northern
Spotted Owl, have threatened another species -- the rural American logger.
spotted owl - a large owl of North America found in forests from British Columbia to central Mexico; has dark brown plumage and a heavily spotted chest