The spotted owl, along with more than 475 other animals and plants, lives in the old-growth forest of the Pacific Northwest. Trees in these old-growth forests can be 150-200 years olds and many spanning 15 feet wide at the base and are as high as 300 feet. Who cares? This is a vital eco system waiting to be raped, all for the sake of greed. Much of the land that has been stripped is National Forestry land and has been sanctioned by the government. It has always been my understanding that national forest is protected.
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Position Paper: The Spotted Owl, The Forest Products Industry, and the Public Policy Process.
The Spotted Owl article states that northern spotted owl is a reclusive bird that few presenters at an April 2, 1993 conference in Portland, Oregon had ever seen. The article also states that the northern spotted owl lives in the old-growth forest of the Pacific Northwest, where the owl nests in snags and trees with broken tops. At issue was whether or not the habitat of the owl should be encroached in any way.
The forest products" industry quite understandably wanted to harvest parts of the old-growth forest to obtain lumber that they could then sell for profit. Environmentalists were outraged that the U.S. Forest Service granted permits in their National Forests for lumber industries to harvest timber in portions of the National Forests. Utilizing the Endangered Species Act as a "sword," various environmental groups filed suit to stop harvesting of the old growth forests by the lumber industry. An injunction against harvesting in the old-growth forests was granted by a U.S. District Court in 1991, which stopped any tree harvesting until the Forest Service could develop an acceptable plan for protecting endangered species, such as the northern spotted owl.
The injunction had a severe effect on the lumber industry, whereby they were only able to sell 700,000 board feet of timber from national forest lands in 1992 as compared to selling 5,000,000,000 board feet of timber in 1987.
