B.C.'s Spotted Owls More Endangered Than Ever
Despite government planning teams, numerous scientific studies, heated debate and efforts of environmentalists and government biologists to conserve B.C.'s northern Spotted Owl, this beautiful bird is now more in danger of going extinct than it was before all the fuss began a decade ago.
Why? Because oldgrowth logging continues to destroy its habitat and owl conservation has a price that the timber industry and its union workforce refuse to pay... giving up logging 254,000 hectares of forest-the last of the Spotted Owls' habitat in B.C.
In June of 1995 the B.C. Government caved in to the timber industry lobby that had intensified over the protection of some oldgrowth forest in the newly created Pincone Lake/Boise Valley/Burke Mountain Park. At the same time as it announced the Pincone/Burke park, the government announced that about 175,000 hectares of proposed SOCA's (Spotted Owl Conservation Areas) would be thrown open to logging-an area roughly equivalent to 440 Stanley Parks. That's almost three-quarters of the total forest land that scientists on the government's Spotted Owl Recovery Team (SORT) identified as absolutely necessary to preserve in order for these owls to survive over time.
The NDP government says that its Spotted Owl decision is "balanced"-it offered some trees to the forest industry and some to the owls. But its approach ignores the fact that the Spotted Owls have already lost over 70 percent of their original B.C. habitat. The species is endangered because industry has already had more than a fair share!
The fight to protect B.C.'s Spotted Owls is not over. Government has committed to creating more new parks in the Lower Mainland region where the owls live. But how much land-and, specifically, how much oldgrowth owl habitat-will be protected? So far, government has said that it will only increase protection in the Lower Mainland from the current 10 percent to 13 percent of the land base. This means only another 104,000 hectares of parks-not enough to protect the forests the Spotted Owls need, let alone other needed park areas which do not contain owl habitat like the Stoltmann Wilderness, Caren Range, and Burns Bog.
Doing the dirty work of carving down all the preservation areas proposed for the Lower Mainland (including the Spotted Owl Conservation Area) to try to squeeze into the government's impossibly tiny preservation "show", is a hand-picked team of "public" representatives called the Regional Public Advisory Committee (RPAC). The environment groups sitting on RPAC include B.C. Wild (coalition of B.C. environment groups heavily funded by U.S. foundations), the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and the Federation of B.C. Naturalists. They are striving to reach consensus with the logging companies that will be affected.
It is rumored that some of the environment groups on RPAC are so intent on saving one particular area (the Mehatl) that they are lobbing B.C. Fish and Wildlife Branch biologists to "drop" some SOCAs to make room for it within the 13 percent squeezebox. Hopefully the government biologists will resist.
The Wilderness Committee stands firm, the Mehatl, all the needed Spotted Owl habitat, the Stoltmann Wilderness, and the other Lower Mainland protected area proposals are essential if we are to keep this region of the planet liveable for both people and other species. Trade-offs now will drastically short-change our future.
Why is it worth saving an endangered species like the Spotted Owl? Extirpation of Canada's only Spotted Owls would signal the destruction of almost all significant stands of oldgrowth in the bird's range. Hundreds of other oldgrowth-dependent species would go with it into extinction.
B.C.'s northern Spotted Owls, say the scientists who know them best, may be vital to the survival of their kin south of the Canada-U.S. border. Our owls, in fact, may hold the key to survival of the species in all of North America because of the genetic variability they possess, being at the extreme northern edge of their range. They have the best chance of adapting through natural selection to the rapid environmental changes now occurring.
Who will be to blame if enough of the Spotted Owl's habitat is not protected and the owl goes extinct? The list is sure to include the timber industry executives who could have provided more value-added job opportunities instead of blaming the owls for their problems; the government officials who could have acted upon the advice of their own scientists, and the environmentalists that may be foolish enough to sign off on a parks plan that is likely to commit 87 percent of the Lower Mainland to logging and development.
What will save the Spotted Owl? An informed and polictally active public that accepts the limits of nature and that is willing to pay a small short-term cost to ensure survival for all species with whom they share this planet.
Just how much would it cost us to "give up" logging the rest of the Spotted Owls' habitat in B.C.? Government economists have calculated the cost of implementing a modest level of protection for the Spotted Owl (and the oldgrowth and many other animals and plants it symbolizes) at only $6.04 per household per year: the price of a couple of video rentals.
Costs aside, everyone must consider: do we have the right to condemn another species to death? And what might be the hidden costs to future generations if we do not save Earth's wild species and the biosphere-stabilizing ecosystems they create?
