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The Northern Spotted Owl - An Oregon View

by Benjamin B. Stout

172 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0253; ISBN 1-55395-890-X; US$19.95, C$26.95, EUR17.60, £12.20

The Northern Spotted Owl - An Oregon View is the story of how a bird was used to stop timber harvest in the Pacific Northwest.

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about the book      about the author      reviews and sample excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book The Northern Spotted Owl - An Oregon View tells the story of a battle to save the forests in a backdrop of economic troubles in the Pacific Northwest. "The economy in the Pacific Northwest is a disaster," says the author. In January 2003, newspapers in Portland and Salem, Oregon, featured reports on the deplorable financial situation in state and local governments. Funds for social services have been slashed as state tax revenues continue to fall below projected levels on which all budgets are based. School funding is in crisis, with drastic spending cuts in schools, colleges and universities, resulting in cutbacks and even wholesale elimination of many high quality educational programs. Unemployment is at record levels, consistently placing Oregon with the fiftieth highest level of the fifty United States. News stories suggest that greatly reduced timber harvest on national forests may be a contributing factor to the economic problems of the region. Rightly or Wrongly, it was the Northern Spotted Owl that brought about that reduction in timber harvests. This book is the story of the spotted owl and its role in the interplay of environmentalism, the timber industry, the economy and ultimately the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest. This volume traces the battles that were fought and the pain and anguish of affected people from the vantage point of one Oregon state representative, Representative Liz VanLeeuwen, to preserve the forests and protect the owl. The book is based on resource material from 360 different sources, including government reports, news articles, correspondence and letters to the editors, Liz VanLeeuwen used to support her political position. Groups interested in making preservation of all forests in the Pacific Northwest their highest priority needed a means of legally preventing all or most timber harvest. They sought an issue on which to focus their legal battle. The Northern Spotted Owl ended up serving that purpose. Congress had passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973. A young biologist, Eric Forsman, had selected the Northern Spotted Owl for the subject of his graduate research, the conclusion of which was that the owl needed old growth forest for survival. Environmentalists took this conclusion and combined it with the legal power of the Endangered Species Act to stop timber harvests on federal land in the region. This book maps out just how successful the environmental campaign was in shutting down federal timber harvests-and also the devastating effect this process has had on the Pacific Northwest. Citizens in rural communities in western Washington and Oregon and northern California warned against the consequences of reduced federal timber harvest. These communities had developed and grown economically and socially based in large measure on jobs and infrastructure generated by the harvest of timber from the federally owned national forests. State and local governments in these regions also became dependent on the payments in lieu of taxes from the federal government for these timber harvests. The size of those payments was based on the amount of timber harvested. The funds, in the tens of millions of dollars, were used to support schools and build and maintain roads. The economy of the Pacific Northwest was based on this natural resource based economy. Citizens of these so-called timber-dependent communities understood that not only their local economies, but also those of their entire states and regions depended on the natural resource base. In fact, they understood this better than their counterparts in the region's cities and populous suburbs. While small town residents and the politicians representing them warned of the dire consequences of closing down the timber industry, residents of the more populous areas felt confidant that they were justified in closing down timber. They congratulated themselves for having successfully moved the Northwest into modern prosperity on the back of companies like Microsoft (WA), Intel and Tektronix (OR). For many years, the devastating effects of eliminating the timber-based economies were masked by what is now known as the high-tech bubble, But when that bubble burst at the end of the 90's, it soon became apparent that the spotted owl had been used not only to shut down most federal timber harvests in the Northwest, but also to decimate the economic and social infrastructure of the Pacific Northwest. In this book, completed in January, 2003, the author attempts to trace the unfortunate developments that have led to the economic disaster that is Oregon today.

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About the Author The author has been involved in forestry since before WWII and holds BSF, MF and Ph.D. degrees. He has managed a research forest (Harvard Black Rock Forest), been a University faculty member (Rutgers), a forestry school dean and experiment station director (Montana) and a program manager for a forest industry forest health program. He retired in 1991. Subsequently, he served as a volunteer natural resources staff person for Oregon Representative Liz VanLeeuwen. If pressed, he will tell you that his scientific specialty is eastern hardwood silviculture. He now lives and golfs in Albany, Oregon.

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Reviews and Sample Excerpts

STATESMAN JOURNAL - Sunday, July 20, 2003

"The Northern Spotted Owl: An Oregon View 1975-2002," by Benjamin B. Stout (Trafford, Victoria, British Columbia; 2003; trade paper-back; 170 pages; $16.95; ISBN 1-55395-890-x).

Benjamin B. Stout lives in Albany. he has multiple academic degrees (all the way up to PhD) and has worked in forestry for some 60 years, as well as teaching at places such as Rutgers University. After retiring, he worked as a volunteer natural resource staff person for Representative Liz VanLeeuwen of the Oregon Legislature.

His book is a culmination of all that experience. In a sense, it is a biography . . . a biography of a political action that was based more on politics than on fact.

It is nothing less than a detailed and objective story of the Northern Spotted Owl and its role in the dismantling of a major portion of the Oregon Economy. It is a study of fanaticism on all sides of an issue and of how the loudest voice gets the attention, no matter the truth.

No matter where you stand on the issue of the little owl, you must read this book. It is the voice of reason and fact in the midst of chaos.

CHAPTER ONE THE NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL INTRODUCTION

The northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have wrought major changes in the way the forests of the region are used to benefit society.

A bird and a law have combined to influence the Pacific Northwest in many ways. This interaction between a bird and the law took place during the tenure of a state legislator who served a district that encompassed a large segment of the Willamette National Forest and lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Many constituents' jobs depended on timber from that federal land, in the woods and in the mills. Representative Liz VanLeeuwen, District 37, diligently saved all the papers that pertained to the owl story. What follows are the gleanings from seven large cartons of material related to the northern spotted owl. The arrangement is essentially chronological. The story begins in the early 1980s. It is still being played out in 2002, and will surely extend well into the 21st century.

The purpose is to assemble in one place a history of the development of the Saga of the Spotted Owl as lived by a legislator who was intensely interested. There were and are many actors. People, communities and local officials, state and federal agencies, politicians and bureaucrats, industries, environmentalists, scientists, and the media all played roles in and influenced the story as it developed.

This is the story of how the idea that the owl is going extinct reduced an industry to shambles to save a bird that now, in hindsight, seems either quite capable of taking care of itself or is being decimated by the barred owl.

EARLY WARNINGS

A graduate student in wildlife biology at Oregon State University, Eric Forsman, chose as his subject species for a graduate degree the northern spotted owl (NSO). It was well known that NSO were few in number and widely distributed in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. The common belief was that NSO lived exclusively in old growth forest. That is where Forsman looked and found NSO.

The mature forest on federal land in the Pacific Northwest was essentially untouched until after World War II. Beginning in the 1950s management of the federal land involved more and more harvest of the wood that had accumulated in these forests since the last major natural disturbance that occurred from 200 to perhaps 650 years ago. The forests on federal land were a mosaic of stands of different ages, all dating from the disturbance that triggered regeneration. In the Douglas-fir region the oldest trees are usually 650 years old or younger. It is approximately 10,000 years since the last advance of the Pleistocene ice. Why not forests 10,000 years old? The answer is disturbance‹fire, wind, insects, and disease. These disturbing factors eliminate the forests‹the Tillamook fires are classic examples‹periodically, usually every 650 years or fewer. We can use the 650-year value to estimate at least how many times the forests have been devastated and regenerated: about 16 times or 10,000 divided by 650.

The harvest of timber from federal land reached a peak in 1988. These are the forests that have been variously labeled as old growth, Ancient Forest, mature forest and each name carries a special connotation. The first two connote forests that have been there *forever.* Hence they have a mystical value. The latter suggests a forest that has reached maturity and could be harvested and replaced with a young, vigorous forest.

A map in an early United States Geological Survey report 1 shows surprisingly small areas of really old, that is, 650 years old or older, forest. The disturbance regime is real.

The conventional wisdom was that NSO lived only in mature forests; mature forests on federal land were being cut; therefore the population of the owls must be declining. That being the case, then the ESA needed to be used to prevent the NSO from becoming extinct.

THE ACTORS

Biologists

Wildlife biologists employed by federal and state agencies are featured actors in this drama. The United States Forest Service (USFS), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) are the major employers of these biologists. Forest industry also had wildlife biologists involved.

Attorneys.

Bureaucrats.

Forest industry association employees.

State and federal legislators.

The legislators' actions were largely aimed at seeking accommodation for constituents while living within the strictures of ESA.

Media, here being the newspapers of the region, reported on the news and commented in editorials on what was being observed. There is no record in Rep. VanLeeuwen*s collection of materials showing television or radio comments.

Environmental organizations sought to achieve their objectives using NSO as a lever. One of the choicest comments by an environmentalist, Andy Stahl, was, "If the spotted owl had not evolved we would have had to invent it to save the forests." ²

The courts have been major players in the drama. No matter what decision an agency made about managing federal forests, some group would soon disagree with the decision. The courts became the controlling branch of the federal establishment in the management or nonmanagement of federal forestland.

Citizens, either through individual initiative via letters to editors or in organizations, have sought to influence the debate on NSO. In the process they have revealed the depth of despair felt in families and communities impacted by reduced harvest of timber on federal land.

One economist frequently summed up discussions-arguments-with this: "It all comes down to money." Federal law stipulates that a portion of the money USFS and BLM get from timber sales goes to local governing bodies for infrastructure and schools. Congress has provided in-kind payments as timber harvest has declined. So for every local politician or school board member in Oregon, urban or rural, the amount of timber money is an important segment on the income side of a budget.

Ideas make the world go around, so it is said. The actors in this drama all had ideas. Many of the ideas were diametrically opposed. The story at any time had the appearance of a whirling dervish due to the conflicting ideas. We seek an understanding of the impact of all these ideas on the people and the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

CHAPTER EIGHT

JUNE FLOWERS-1989

"There are not many forests left to which the spotted owl can flee as the chain saw pursues him into his natural habitat, the last remaining ancient big tree forests in the United States. Already ninety percent of the giant trees that serve as aerie lairs for the owl-some of them seven feet across and hundreds of years old‹have fallen before the onslaught of the logger."¹⁴³ That is a heart-rending statement. The ninety percent fallen is a figure that comes from the calculation that in the entire United States ninety percent of the forests have been harvested at least once. In the Detroit Ranger District, Willamette National Forest, in the mid-1990s 35 percent of the district had trees over 140 years old; such trees have, therefore, not been exposed to the onslaught of the logger in a district reputed to be the heaviest cut district in a forest reputed to be the heaviest harvested in the national forest system.¹⁴⁴

The magazine Oregon Business reported that the US Forest Service told it that of its 24 million acres of forest in the Northwest, 6.2 million acres were considered old growth‹about 25 percent. The Service had plans to log 900,000 acres of that during the next decade and perhaps a total of 2.3 million acres by 2040. That would leave 3.9 million acres of old growth on that date. That is well above the 10 percent claimed to now exist by Humane News.¹⁴⁵

Earth First!, about which we heard earlier from Dave Foreman, was back in the news. Four members, including Foreman, were arraigned for conspiracy to sabotage nuclear facilities in the Southwest.¹⁴⁶ We shall hear from this group again and again.

The old adage, "Figures don't lie, but liars can figure," often seems appropriate in the timber debate. We have just seen the 10% / 90% figures. An editorial began, "It's hard to imagine a more misleading assertion than this one reported by The Associated Press in one of the stories, printed in our paper, about the timber controversy: 'As the Northwest's economy diversifies and modernizes, wood products have shrunk to 6 percent of Oregon's gross state product and 2.2 percent of Washington's.'" The editorial goes on with the rhetorical question, "It it's true that the timber industry amounts to only 6 percent, why should everybody be so worried?" The answer, it goes on to say, "The key lies in the phrase Œgross state product.'" The editorial explains that gross state product is not the appropriate measure of the importance of the timber industry to the state. It shows that 38 percent of all wage and salary employment in the state of Oregon comes from the timber industry. The editorial concludes: "Basic industries such as these [timber related] have a far greater importance than their proportion of the 'gross state product' would lead people to think."¹⁴⁷

April showers bring May flowers. By June hope springs eternal in the human breast. In June 1989, it was "New Forestry." "'I see it as a major philosophical change rather than an incremental change,' said Jerry Franklin, a University of Washington professor and U. S. Forest Service scientist who was a leading spokesman for the movement. 'In terms of forestry practice, it is revolutionary.'"¹⁴⁸ In the same article Kathy Johnson, District Ranger, Gold Beach Ranger District, said that, "What we will do is leave the large blocks of old growth forest. As we move out from that large block of old growth forest into areas previously harvested, we feather out the impacts. We'll leave a certain amount of old growth trees per acre. That number increases as you get closer to the undisturbed block of old growth." The article also said that the new practice would result in a 5 percent dip in timber production over the 130-year harvest cycle.

A letter to the editor headed "Students Threatened" took a less sanguine view.¹⁴⁹ The writer, Bruce Thiel, said, "Your Sunday cartoon showing Sen. Bob Packwood standing on a field of tree stumps is unfair both to the senator and the concept of sustained-yield forestry mandated by law. Your cartoon implies that all old-growth trees are about to be cut. This is not true." Continuing, Mr. Thiel said, "Today in Oregon, more than 3 million acres of land are legally off-limits to the chain saws. Thirtyfive wilderness areas, seven of which are less than a two-hour drive from Portland, contain 2 million acres of virgin forest. These old-growth lands will remain spotted owl habitat forever." He then wrote, "Instead of the spotted owl, the Oregon schoolchild should be listed as a threatened species. Last year Clackamas County and its schools received $12,741,600. directly from Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management timber sales. Since the injunctions have already curtailed this year's logging, future revenues will decline." Mr. Thiel concluded, "The Fish and Wildlife Status Review has already identified 67 spotted owl sites in timber stands less than 100 years of age. It looks to me as if the owl can adapt. Can the Oregon schoolchild?"

June 24, 1989 was to be a day of reckoning. That was the day of the Timber Summit in Salem. It was a meeting called by the Oregon congressional delegation and Governor Goldschmidt. The purpose of the meeting was, "(T)o obtain, evaluate and clarify information to assist the Oregon congressional delegation and the governor in developing short-and long-term options in resolving timber supply and old growth management conflicts on federal lands in Oregon."¹⁵⁰ The cited article also suggests that while timber interests were receptive to the agenda, environmental groups were less than pleased.

Writers had been predicting that the Timber Summit would be an exercise in futility. For example, The Oregonian carried such a piece earlier in the month, before the agenda was announced. The author, William H. Boyer, said,

There are two crucial principles for long-range policies that bear on the solution to the old-growth crisis:

0 One is that the forests must be sustained for present and future generations.

0 The other is that old growth and its ecosystems are essentially nonrenewable. ¹⁵¹

Here, again, we have a judgment being cited as a principle. As we have noted earlier, the forests of the Pacific Northwest are rarely more than 650 years old. It is 10,000 years since the Ice Age. Therefore, the forests have grown, been taken down, and renewed at least 16 times during that period. The old growth is renewable if you are willing to wait 650 years and assure that no fire, insect or disease, pest, or windstorm takes the forest down. Furthermore, as Mr. Thiel reminded readers, there are several million acres of old growth legally set aside for following generations to study and enjoy.

As the Timber Summit approached, several points of view were expressed. Environmentalists wanted more representation on the Summit Panel.152 The Dean of the Business School, University of Oregon, published an opinion piece in which he argued the importance of the timber industry to Oregon.¹⁵³

The basic information on the amount of volume in what kinds of forests was missing. Environmentalists see ample timber¹⁵⁴ was one view of the situation. The same article reported that industry people were saying they couldn*t check the statement because they did not know what areas were included in the environmentalists' data. Confusion reigned. On the same day it was reported that the U. S. Forest Service was beginning a survey to find out about the amount of timber and owls.¹⁵⁵ As it turned out, many years would pass and the basic data are still to be determined.

Rep. VanLeeuwen wrote to the new speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington, D. C. She presented her points of view and urged the new speaker to work toward revising the appeals process, assuring sustained yield, and correcting the Endangered Species Act.¹⁵⁶ Over a decade later none of those actions has been taken.

Headlines captured the tenor of the times. "Rosboro to lay off workers," said the Eugene Register Guard on June 15, 1989, because of log shortage. The politicians couldn't keep from stepping on each other's toes. The Albany Democrat Herald reported on June 16, 1989, "Governor criticizes Packwood's plans for timber meeting." And in a commentary Ron Blankenbaker wrote in the Salem Statesman Journal on June 16, 1989, that one explanation of the governor's pushing for the timber summit was to avert attention from his troubles with workers' compensation insurance.

While politicians, environmentalists and timber industry representatives jockeyed for position, things were happening in the woods. A spotted owl was spotted near a timber sale on the Siuslaw National Forest.157 Timber harvests had been near peak levels on the national forests and BLM lands in 1988. A windfall was due to the counties that had such land.158 In 1988 Linn County got $7.4 million for county roads and $2.4 million for schools, the article reported. At the same time it was being predicted that mills would have enough timber to keep operating for the summer of 1989.¹⁵⁹

Some looked for places to place the blame for the owl/timber collection of problems. The National Forest Management Act of 1976 was designed, based on some interpretations, to guide the Forest Service in building relationships with the public through planning. Robert Wolff, a retired federal forester, blamed the forest service for not using the planning process called for in the NMFA to build bridges to the public, thus avoiding the problems the agency faced in 1989.¹⁶⁰

The Timber Summit was imminent. Nevertheless, other activities had to move forward. In Washington subcommittees were working on budgets. In testimony environmentalists were pleading for reductions in the timber harvest budgets for the Forest Service and BLM. Industry representatives argued that cutting back on harvest levels would bring economic ruin to the region. Congressman AuCoin was said to be preparing "riders" on appropriations bills that would alleviate the problem. ¹⁶¹

The congressman followed through. He persuaded a House subcommittee to add $17 million to the Forest Service budget so that it could prepare more timber sales in 1990.162 AuCoin also teamed with Congressman Norman Dicks, D-Washington, to turn back the efforts of Rep. Sidney Yates, D-Illinois, subcommittee chairman, to cut back on timber harvest.¹⁶³ However, Yates was joined by two other subcommittee chairmen, Bruce Vento and Harold Volkmer, in his effort to reduce timber harvests and protect old growth. They were saying that the protection is a national issue.¹⁶⁴ If the members of congress were split, so were most Oregonians. The Oregonian had conducted a poll of people in the state and found that there was much agreement on banning export of logs from state land, but on other issues there was a nearly even split on timber policies.¹⁶⁵

On the eve of the Timber Summit, advantage was being sought from all sides. It was reported that Senator Bob Packwood was pressing the environmentalists to give more in the up-coming negotiations because they had more.166 At the same time those in the woods who wanted to stop timber harvest were active. Tree spiking continued.¹⁶⁷ The article reported on logs that had come from a controversial timber harvest on BLM land in southern Oregon. And federal biologists were moving forward. They proposed threatened status for the northern spotted owl.¹⁶⁸

The Timber Summit was held as scheduled on June 24, 1989. Compromises of various kinds had been offered. By the following Monday no agreement had been reached. The Chairman, Senator Hatfield, was pressing for agreement so he could get a rider in an appropriations bill. But as the sun went down on the 26th, no agreement had been reached.169 What had been hammered out was an arrangement whereby there would be reduced timber harvest on federal land of about eight percent in coming fiscal years. One paper suggested that the plan offered some breathing room; it was a morning paper.¹⁷⁰ When the evening editions hit the streets the high hopes for the summit had been dashed.¹⁷¹ Environmentalists claimed that there was not enough time to study the proposal. Timber industry representatives and members of congress were apparently willing to accept the arrangement, the article reported.

In an election held on the same Tuesday, June 27, 1989, a measure to ban export of logs from state land passed with a more than a 10 to 1 majority.¹⁷²

As June 1989, came to a close, injunctions stopping harvest on federal land were still in place. The effort to reach a compromise had failed, even though some were still trying.¹⁷³ Amid uncertainty about what the future held a report from Washington, D. C. must have been a bitter pill for those concerned about the present and future of the timber industry. The chief of the Forest Service reported to a congressional committee, "I don't think we ought to penalize the people of the Northwest, throw people out of work, close down towns, until a biological decision can be made properly." There was a lack of good data to make a decision.¹⁷⁴

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Catalogue Information

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