Newsflash
February 5, 2008 – Court Upholds Habitat Protection for Mexican Spotted Owl
The mysterious and lovely Mexican spotted owl is the Southwest's most famous old-growth resident. Its scientific name translates to "owl (or witch) of the West" — a fitting name for a species found in five Western states and southward into the mountains of Mexico. But by the late 1980s, at the height of logging operations on our national forests, only 2,000 Mexican spotted owls were estimated to remain in the world.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Threatened
YEAR PLACED ON LIST: 1993
CRITICAL HABITAT: 8,647,749 acres in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah designated in 2004
RECOVERY PLAN: 1995
RANGE: Largest geographic distribution of all spotted owl subspecies, extending from the four-corner states southward into west Texas and Mexico’s Sierra Madres; nearly 90 percent of known territories exist on Forest Service lands in Arizona and New Mexico
THREATS: Logging, urban encroachment, mining, large-scale recreational developments, and wildfire
POPULATION TREND:Like the other two subspecies of spotted owl, California and Northern, Strix occidentalis lucida has suffered extensive population declines. Only about 2,100 owls are thought to still exist north of the border, far fewer in Mexico. The owl has been extirpated from low-elevation riparian forests in Arizona and New Mexico. Between the years 1991 and 1997, research documented spotted owl populations on the Gila and Coconino national forests declining by at least 10 percent per year. Scientists have continued to detect dwindling populations: no owls successfully reproduced in the Gila study area in 2002.
|
SAVING THE MEXICAN SPOTTED OWL
Recognizing the owl was on the brink of extinction, the Center petitioned to list it as a federally endangered species in 1989. Four years later, the owl was listed. But the battle had just begun.
In 1994, we filed suit for critical habitat for the owl. In 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 4.6 million acres on 11 national forests in the Southwest. But in 1997, on a legal technicality, that designation was withdrawn. In 2000, a court ordered the Service to re-designate critical habitat for the imperiled owl; but in 2001, the Service took the remarkable position that the best habitat for the Mexican spotted owl should not in fact be included in its critical habitat designation. In response, the Center filed its third lawsuit, and a federal judge saw it from our point of view and struck down the Service’s designation as “nonsensical.” Still the saga continued: in 2003 then-Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton refused to comply with a court order to designate critical habitat for the Mexican spotted owl, and the judge ordered “immediate and expedited” compliance. The following year, the owl’s critical habitat expanded to 8,647,749 acres.
Meanwhile, the Center sued the Forest Service in 1995 for failing to consult on the effects of 11 regional forest plans on the owl. In 1996, the agency revised all 11 plans to incorporate the Mexican Spotted Owl Recovery Plan, but grandfathered in all ongoing logging and grazing, forcing us to sue once again. The resulting legal battles halted all logging in the Southwest for 16 months before forcing the Forest Service to implement the federal recovery plan.
Center efforts to protect the owl revolutionized forest management in the Southwest. In 1989, national forests in Arizona and New Mexico were logging nearly half a billion board feet of timber per year, much of it old-growth ponderosa pine and Douglas fir; by 2002, only 65 million board feet fell to the saw, and plans to extend logging from logged-out ponderosa pine forests to mixed conifer canyons were virtually canceled.
But owl populations are still in decline: The agencies responsible for its protection continue to favor industry over endangered species and have failed to monitor the owl’s long-term population. No one knows how many owls exist today.
ACTION TIMELINE
+ CAMPAIGN LINKS
NATURAL HISTORY
+ DETRITUS
Contact:
|
RobinSilver.jpg)