Seattle Times
www.seattletimes.com

 

Federal agency sued for 'neglecting' owl

by Peggy Andersen
The Associated Press

Tuesday, August 22, 2000

Ten Northwest environmental groups are suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, contending the agency has failed to protect the northern spotted owl - the bird that changed logging forever in the region.

The groups contend Fish and Wildlife has neglected its duties to the shy deep-woods bird, which was declared a threatened species nearly a decade ago - a listing that curbed logging on public lands and changed logging practices on private lands throughout the region.

Officials at the Fish and Wildlife Service's regional office in Portland had not seen the lawsuit. Activists said the agency would be served with the complaint this week. The lawsuit was filed Aug. 11 in U.S. District Court in Seattle, the activists said.

"All I can say is that we're very disappointed that they want to go to court over this - mostly because we've been meeting with them in good faith for some time over this issue," said Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Jenny Valdivia.

The lawsuit contends the agency "has for years authorized the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to `take' " - defined as harm, harass or kill - "owls without keeping track of the number of owls taken or the effects on the owl population in Pacific Northwest forests," according to a news release from plaintiffs.

At issue are "incidental take permits," issued by Fish and Wildlife to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Forest Service, that allow timber sales to proceed, said James Johnston with the Cascadia Wildland Project in Eugene.

"The U.S. Forest Service has a `don't ask, don't tell' policy with regard to owl take," said Mitch Friedman, executive director of the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance in Bellingham.

The groups also contend the agency violates the Endangered Species Act by allowing the Forest Service to authorize logging "in forests designated as critical habitat for the owl's recovery."

Under the Endangered Species Act, Fish and Wildlife "is essentially responsible for protecting the owl," Johnston said.

The groups plan to seek a halt to Fish and Wildlife authorization for logging until the agency "adequately analyzes impacts to the species," according to the news release.

"We're going to ask Fish and Wildlife to do it right - and until they do it right" to stop them from authorizing logging-tract sales on federal lands, Johnston said.

There was no immediate response yesterday from the Washington Forest Protection Association, an industry group in Olympia, or the Northwest Forestry Association in Portland.

In the early 1990s, U.S. District Judge William Dwyer in Seattle barred logging on millions of acres of federal land on grounds the government had failed to protect the owl as required by the Endangered Species Act.

The Clinton administration addressed those concerns with the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which anticipated a drop in the owl population - then estimated at about 5,000 pairs - at a rate of less than 1 percent a year during the next 40 years.

In April 1999, a five-year report on the plan found the owl population was declining at a rate of about 5 percent a year - between 3.9 percent and 8.3 percent annually. The slide was worse - 12.4 percent - on the Olympic Peninsula.

At a rate of 8.3 percent, in 15 years or so, "that's all she wrote," Johnston said.

Additional plaintiff groups in Oregon are the Oregon Natural Resources Council Fund, the American Lands Alliance, Bark, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Northwest Environmental Defense Center and Umpqua Watersheds; and in Washington, the Gifford Pinchot Task Force and the Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project.