MICHAEL MILSTEIN The Oregonian Staff
Two decades after the wrenching drive to save an obscure bird divided Oregonians, reshaped the economy and tore apart the political landscape, the northern spotted owl is disappearing anyway.
Even the most optimistic biologists now admit that the docile owl -- revered and reviled as the most contentious symbol the Northwest has known -- will probably never fully recover.
Intensive logging of the spotted owl's old-growth forest home threw the first punch that sent the species reeling. But the knockout blow is coming from a direction that scientists who drew up plans to save the owl didn't count on: nature itself.
The versatile and voracious barred owl is proving far more adept at getting rid of the smaller owl than the Endangered Species Act was in saving it:
Fewer than 25 spotted owls remain in British Columbia, the northern fringe of its range -- and where barred owls first moved into the West. Biologists say the best hope for Canada's spotted owls would be for zoos to capture and breed them, and perhaps someday return them to the wild.
Spotted owls are vanishing inside Olympic National Park, where logging never disturbed them. A biologist looking for them says it sometimes seems like searching for the long-lost ivory-billed woodpecker. Barred owl numbers, though, are "through the roof."
Researchers fitting owls with radio transmitters and tracking them west of Eugene are finding more barred owls in Oregon's woods than anyone realized. A few decades ago, no barred owls existed there; now they outnumber spotted owls more than 2-to-1.
"It looks like we may have really underestimated the number of barred owls," says David Wiens, a leader of the study based at Oregon State University.
Eric Forsman, a U.S. Forest Service biologist whose pioneering research put the spotted owl on the map, is helping oversee the study with Wiens. "I think we're going to be depressed when it's all over," Forsman says.
The spotted owl was not the only reason for protecting Northwest forests, but it was the trigger. With its dependence on towering old trees, the owl brought the Endangered Species Act into play during the logging boom of the 1980s. Judges finally put a stop to the cutting that threatened it.
Two decades after the wrenching drive to save an obscure bird divided Oregonians, reshaped the economy and tore apart the political landscape, the northern spotted owl is disappearing anyway.
Even the most optimistic biologists now admit that the docile owl -- revered and reviled as the most contentious symbol the Northwest has known -- will probably never fully recover.
Intensive logging of the spotted owl's old-growth forest home threw the first punch that sent the species reeling. But the knockout blow is coming from a direction that scientists who drew up plans to save the owl didn't count on: nature itself.
The versatile and voracious barred owl is proving far more adept at getting rid of the smaller owl than the Endangered Species Act was in saving it:
Fewer than 25 spotted owls remain in British Columbia, the northern fringe of its range -- and where barred owls first moved into the West. Biologists say the best hope for Canada's spotted owls would be for zoos to capture and breed them, and perhaps someday return them to the wild.
Spotted owls are vanishing inside Olympic National Park, where logging never disturbed them. A biologist looking for them says it sometimes seems like searching for the long-lost ivory-billed woodpecker. Barred owl numbers, though, are "through the roof."
Researchers fitting owls with radio transmitters and tracking them west of Eugene are finding more barred owls in Oregon's woods than anyone realized. A few decades ago, no barred owls existed there; now they outnumber spotted owls more than 2-to-1.
"It looks like we may have really underestimated the number of barred owls," says David Wiens, a leader of the study based at Oregon State University.
Eric Forsman, a U.S. Forest Service biologist whose pioneering research put the spotted owl on the map, is helping oversee the study with Wiens. "I think we're going to be depressed when it's all over," Forsman says.
The spotted owl was not the only reason for protecting Northwest forests, but it was the trigger. With its dependence on towering old trees, the owl brought the Endangered Species Act into play during the logging boom of the 1980s. Judges finally put a stop to the cutting that threatened it.
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