Razing the Forest Primeval

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Lawyers for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit in early May against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The suit asks the court to order the federal agency to add the northern spotted owl to the list of threate ned and endangered species. The case set off storms of controversy.

Admittedly, the lawsuit is a drastic step, and—assuming it succeeds, which it may or may not—it may, indeed, impose short-term economic hardships on some elements of the timber industry. The organizations that brought the suit—including the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, the Oregon Natural Resources Council, Headwaters and many Audubon Society chapters in Oregon and Washington—understand this all too well.

They are not, however—as charged by industry spokespersons—a bunch of hardhearted zealots who love birds more than people. Rather, they're like the Audubon Society official who once was asked if he liked birds or people better. "I like people who like birds," he answered.

In addition, they're people who clearly understand the following:

The spotted owl population in the Northwest has crashed dramatically and alarmingly in the past few decades, and if drastic steps aren't taken quickly, it may be too late to save the species. (In denying the groups' petition to "list" the species, the FWS relied on a study by a single scientist who later accused the agency of misrepresenting his work.)

Spotted owls depend on old-growth forests to survive. Industry, in its wisdom, has eliminated virtually every acre of old growth on private land in the Northwest. That means that essentially all the habitat suitable for spotted owls is on federal land.

Decisions on whether to add species to the endangered species list are required by law to be based strictly on biological science—not economics, not politics, not whether a species is cute or cuddly. Fish and Wildlife Service officials have acknowledged, however, that politics and economics played a considerable role in their decision. If that's true, it's illegal.

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