Timber firms threaten lawsuit over spotted owl

Associated Press

SEATTLE — A coalition of timber companies is threatening to sue the federal government if it doesn’t review the protected status of the northern spotted owl, whose classification under the Endangered Species Act halted logging on millions of acres of public land.

In a petition filed with Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the American Forest Resource Council accused the agency of failing to comply with the act’s requirement to review the status of threatened species every five years, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Friday.

It also argues that new evidence shows the birds are not in as much trouble as thought when they earned protection under the law in the early 1990s.

The petition is similar to one the group filed in January over the marbled murrelet.

"The information we have about both these species is a lot different from when they were listed," said Chris West, vice president of the Forest Resource Council. "We just want a reassessment of: Are they at risk, and if they are at risk, what is the culprit?"

Joan Jewett, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said both species have been studied thoroughly and both still need help.

Norton must respond to the petitions within 60 days of receiving them. If she does not, or if the timber group is not satisfied with her response, it would be legally empowered to file suit against the government.

The timber group’s attempt to change the birds’ status might not be a long shot. Earlier this week, a judge in Los Angeles gave the Bush administration permission to allow developers to build on thousands of acres considered critical to an imperiled shrimp and a small bird in a four-county area of Southern California.

The owl petition relies partly on studies headed by Alan Franklin, a wildlife biologist at Colorado State University. It also cites evidence that the owls are not exclusively dependent on old-growth forests.

In six of 15 areas studied, including Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, spotted owl populations appeared to be dwindling. Three other populations appeared stable, while data on the remainder were too ambiguous to determine a trend.

"Everybody wants it cut and dried — it’s either declining or not," Franklin said. "Sorry, but it’s not that clear-cut."

In rejecting an earlier petition to remove the owl’s protection, the Fish and Wildlife Service noted about a year ago that one study Franklin headed measured the owl’s decline between 1985 and 1998 at an average of 3.9 percent a year. That was an improvement over the 4.5 percent annual decline measured earlier.

"Reproductive rates and … survival rates can be relatively stable, but still be lower than necessary to support a stable population," the Fish and Wildlife Service wrote. "The result is a declining population."