Logging Canada's Last Spotted Owl Habitat

Logging Canada's Last Spotted Owl Habitat



2007 September -   The last 
habitat of Canada's critically endangered Northern spotted owls is being 
logged in a government-approved operation, conservationists have 
discovered. Canada's largest membership-based wilderness preservation 
organization, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, is demanding that 
the government of British Columbia follow its own owl management policy 
and call a halt to the logging. 
A total of just 17 spotted owls remain in Canada - all in British 
Columbia. A federally listed endangered species at risk, these owls rely 
on old-growth forests to roost, nest and forage. Six single spotted owls 
and four pairs still live in the wild, down from an estimated population 
of 500 pairs before commercial logging began in the last century. Three 
single owls have been captured for a government captive breeding program.

Western Canada Wilderness Committee staff scientist Andy Miller discovered 
the ongoing logging operation while investigating one of the province's 
few remaining spotted owl sites at S&M Creek near Pemberton. 
The first of 14 government-approved cutblocks at S&M Creek has recently 
been felled and a network of new logging roads has been built through 
critical spotted owl habitat, Miller says. All of the logging is taking 
place within a Spotted Owl Management Zone designated by the BC 
government. 
To publicize the government's violation of its own owl management policy, 
the Western Canada Wilderness Committee today established a research camp 
along the Green River logging road, in a small meadow directly adjacent to 
the owl's forest home. 
"We are setting up the research camp to attract public attention to this 
BC government-approved logging operation which is damaging this endangered 
species site," said Miller. 
"We will also be photographing and documenting on video the destruction 
caused by the road construction and tree felling, and each one of the 
planned cutblocks so we can show the world the spotted owl habitat that is 
at risk. Our aim is to get this logging stopped," he said. 
S&M Creek is not an ordinary spotted owl site, the conservationists say. 
In the 1980s, when the BC government first began studying this endangered 
species, government scientists identified 40 spotted owl sites to monitor. 
These owls were visited annually, and they were given a degree of habitat 
protection. 
The S&M Creek site is one of the last of those original 40 sites that is 
still occupied by a spotted owl.

Owls have disappeared from most of the rest of the sites as a result of 
habitat fragmentation caused by logging approved by the provincial 
government. 
In May, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee learned of the 
government's intention to capture at least half, and perhaps all, of 
Canada's remaining spotted owls for an experimental captive-breeding 
program. 
Information obtained by the "Vancouver Sun" newspaper through a Freedom Of 
Information request confirmed that the government has decided not to 
reduce logging to preserve habitat for the few remaining owls. 
The conservationists say that decision puts owl recovery in grave 
jeopardy. 
"Putting wild spotted owls in zoos while the BC government continues to 
grant approval to logging companies to log their habitat borders on the 
criminally insane," said Joe Foy, campaign director with the Wilderness 
Committee. "It's a cynical attempt to curry public favor while doing 
nothing to recover the species." 
"Where will they release the young owls - into a sea of cutblocks? fumed 
Foy. "The BC government needs to order an immediate halt to the logging at 
S&M Creek." 
The Wilderness Committee is demanding that the BC government follow the 
2003 recommendations of their own Spotted Owl Recovery Team and ban 
logging in all Spotted Owl Management Areas in order to recover the 
species to at least 250 birds. 
Foy said, "If they had followed the Spotted Owl Recovery Team's 2003 
recommendations we wouldn't be in this mess at S&M Creek today." 
For map directions to the Wilderness Committee camp at S&M Creek go to: 
www.wildernesscommittee.org 

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