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Like its cousins the Mexican and northern spotted owls, the California spotted owl lives in old-growth forests threatened by logging. This owl’s classic four-note call was once commonly heard throughout the big trees of the Sierra Nevada and southern California ranges, including the giant sequoias of Kings Canyon National Park, but logging, urban sprawl, and recent encroachment by the barred owl — an aggressive relative that has been muscling spotted owls out of the woods from British Columbia to the Sierra — are silencing it.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Not listed
PETITIONED: 2000; 2004
RANGE: The Sierra Nevada and southern California mountain ranges
THREATS: Logging, urbanization, wildfire, and competition from the invasive barred owl
POPULATION TREND: Old-growth forests in the range of the California spotted owl have declined by roughly 90 percent, with an indeterminable but likely severe impact on the owl. Studies from the 1990s showed annual declines in California spotted owl populations of five to 10 percent. A recent reanalysis of population data by the U.S. Forest Service found similar declines, but because of a lack of statistical certainty, concluded that the rate of decline was uncertain.
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SAVING THE CALIFORNIA SPOTTED OWL
The spotted owl, including the California subspecies, is a bellwether for old-growth forests across the West and the hundreds of species that make those forests their home. In the last half of the Clinton administration, the Forest Service initiated planning for the eight national forests of the Sierra Nevada under what is referred to as the “Sierra Nevada Framework.” During this planning, the Center and Sierra Forest Legacy filed petitions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the California spotted owl and Pacific fisher as threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act, to ensure that their conservation would be given the highest consideration.
In its final hours, the Clinton administration issued the Sierra Nevada Framework, which set forth substantial protections for the owl and fisher and followed a number of the guidelines recommended in the petitions. But based on protections provided by the Framework, the Fish and Wildlife Service denied protection for the owl under the Endangered Species Act. At the same time, the Bush administration reopened consideration of the Framework, ultimately resulting in a new version of the plan that gutted protections for both the fisher and the owl.
In 2004, the Center filed another petition to have the owl protected as threatened or endangered. In the three years between our two petitions, the owls had continued to decline, protection was weakened, and the barred owl increased in numbers and moved further south into the California spotted owl’s range. Yet in 2006, the Fish and Wildlife Service again denied protection, claiming that owl populations in the Sierra Nevada may be stable.
Although protection of the owl under the Endangered Species Act is at present stalled, the Center has continued to advocate to save its habitat. We have been actively involved in stopping a number of timber sales in the Sierra Nevada and have advocated for strong owl protection in plans developed for the Giant Sequoia National Monument and four southern California national forests. The Center has also joined Sierra Forest Legacy in challenging the weakened version of the Sierra Nevada Framework.
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Contact: Noah Greenwald
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