---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 23:40:04 -0500
From: Jim Rieger <Squirlman@AOL.COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONSLINK
<CONSLINK%SIVM.BITNET@VTBIT.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject: Mexico Spotted Owl--Open Questions
Many thanks to Robin Silver for posting the article on from The Arizona
Republic on the Mexican Spotted Owl. This was an excellent, interesting
summary of a number of the issues. I have a couple of questions that I
invite anyone to respond to, for or against:
1) It has often been said that we don't want to have to use the Endangered
Species Act (ESA) to often. If we do, and we are as strict as the ESA
stipulates, the "public" will get tired of the ESA and bring pressure on the
legislature to change or nullify it. Given the the ESA appears to be set for
legislative overhaul anyway, how much of a concern is this issue? Is Steve
Spangle, endangered-species listing coordinator for Fish and Wildlife's
regional office in Albuquerque, really acting in the best interests of a
environmentally-concerned public by trying not to rely on the ESA to save the
spotted owl? Or is he a business-oriented politician interested in giving
the timber industry as much as he can?
2) The article cites the timber interest's claim that the forests of the
southwest need to be managed for the health of the forests. "They contend
that the failure to cut enough trees, combined with nearly a century of fire
suppression, , has allowed too many small trees to stifle the growth of
larger ones, encouraged the spread of insects and disease; and enabled the
accumulation of fuel that could result in catastrophic forest fires. But a
recent study conducted by Northern Arizona University shows the owls prefer
forest areas that have not been logged and tend to avoid areas that have been
cut."
In 1988, my field camp in Grand Teton National Park burned in the fires that
raged through Yellowstone National Park during that drought year. There was
much talk of how years of fire suppression had created a tinderbox of forest
undergrowth. I saw the fires, I saw what they did. Fires, apparently, were
an important part of western ecosystems, as were many of the other biotic and
abiotic elements that people have removed. How important are they in the
Southwest? Do these forests need to be managed? What happens if we set up 7
million acres of critical habitat for spotted owls, but over the next 20
years, 75% of it burns?
Who is the best entity to manage the forests? The forest service, using
government-funded management plans? or the Forest Service, regulating
cutting by the timber industry--which could presemably, maybe, be operated at
a profit? Or is the best way to manage the forests to have controlled,
periodic burns? What would happen to owls during these burns?
I appreciate any and all discussion on these issues.
--Jim Rieger
Conservation and Research Center
Smithsonian Institution
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