Portland, OR — Conservation groups intervened today in a lawsuit brought by the timber industry and counties seeking to strip northern spotted owls of protections for their critical habitat across millions of acres of forests in California, Oregon and Washington.
The industry lawsuit attempts to reinstate a critical habitat rollback issued in the final weeks of the first Trump administration that removed nearly 3.5 million acres from the 9.6 million acres that were protected for spotted owls in 2012.
“The logging industry wants to frame this lawsuit as just about the northern spotted owl, but what’s really at stake are our oldest, most resilient forests, forests that also provide cold, clean rivers for salmon, drinking water for communities and cherished places for countless people,” said John Persell, staff attorney for Oregon Wild. “Trump administration officials have made it clear they view these lands as little more than a source of profit. It’s up to all of us to stand up — for owls, salmon, clean water and carbon-storing forests — and say no.”
The northern spotted owl first gained critical habitat protection in 1992, and those were adjusted in 2012 under the Obama administration. That rule was challenged in court by the timber industry, resulting in a settlement and a January 2021 designation excluding 3.5 million acres from critical habitat protection, nearly all on public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
Just 10 months later, the Biden administration rescinded the final designation and instead finalized a proposed rule that excluded 204,294 acres instead of 3.5 million acres. That Biden administration rule is being challenged by the timber industry’s current lawsuit, which is seeking to reinstate the expanded Trump administration revision.
“The forests these precious owls depend on also provide all of us with benefits like clean water, recreation, jobs and climate resiliency,” said Chelsea Stewart-Fusek, an endangered species attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Given Trump’s relentless assaults on our most cherished wildlife and public lands, it’s no surprise that corporate timber interests are resurrecting their attacks on northern spotted owls and the places they live in the name of short-term profit.”
“This latest attempt by the timber industry to remove protections for northern spotted owls is a cynical move that perpetuates not only the biodiversity and extinction crises, but also the pendulum swing regarding management of the owl’s habitat,” said Susan Jane Brown, attorney with Silvix Resources that represents some of the intervenors. “Rather than accept that the best available science requires the protection of millions of acres of spotted owl habitat to prevent the extinction and foster the recovery of the owl, industry’s lawsuit seeks to unnecessarily stoke controversy.”
“This is a tired story: the timber industry attempting to game the legal system in order to expand logging on our public lands,” said Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center. “Unfortunately for them, they have to come through us first. We have stood up for the northern spotted owls and science for decades and we aren’t backing down.”
“The lawyers for Big Timber are cherry-picking a courthouse across the country to attack old-growth spotted owl habitat in our neck of the woods,” said George Sexton, conservation director for Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center. “So we’re intervening to stand up for science and our forests.”
“With northern spotted owl population numbers in precipitous decline, the timber industry seeks to remove protections from a full third — 3.5 million acres — of the species’ critical habitat,” said David Woodsmall, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “This is a choice by the industry to drive the northern spotted owl to extinction for private profit, antithetical to the American values of conservation embodied in our laws. Western Environmental Law Center has fought for northern spotted owl recovery for decades, and we will use the power of the law to thwart any action that threatens the survival of this iconic species.”
“Drastically reducing spotted owl habitat protections is not only antithetical to the best science we have for allowing the imperiled species to recover, but puts at risk all the other benefits that protecting these public lands provide to Oregonians, the very people that these lands are supposed to be managed for,” says Nick Cady with Cascadia Wildlands. “Aggressive logging increases wildfire risk, threatens drinking water sources, recreation opportunities, and much more all for the benefit of corporate timber barons.”
“With less than 3,000 spotted owls left and a population that is declining precipitously, this challenge is a slap in the face to conservation and the survival of this species. Any reduction in acreage of critical habitat could be this species’ death knell,” said Joe Liebezeit, statewide conservation director for Bird Alliance of Oregon.
“Everything needs a home to survive,” said Dave Werntz, science and conservation director at Conservation Northwest. “The northern spotted owl is no exception.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protected the northern spotted owl, a bird found only in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. In 2020, because of continued loss of the old forests they need to live and competition with the invasive barred owl, the Service found northern spotted owls should now be classified as endangered but has yet to provide stronger protections for the species.
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