British Columbia provincial government sponsors Spotted Owl extinction and environmental destruction

Activists pursue desperate attempt halt greed-driven logging

Edited by Traci Lawson

VANCOUVER – During a routine investigation of one of BC’s last few remaining Spotted Owl sites at S & M Creek near Pemberton, BC, Wilderness Committee staff scientist Andy Miller discovered an ongoing logging operation. The first of 14 BC government-approved cutblocks at S & M Creek has recently been felled and a network of new logging roads have been built through critical spotted owl habitat. All of the logging is within a BC government designated Spotted Owl Management Zone.

As a result of the violation, the Wilderness Committee has now 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. 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,” said Miller.

S & M Creek is no ordinary spotted owl site. When the BC government first began studying this endangered species back in the 1980s they 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. Most of the rest of the sites have seen owls disappear as a result of habitat fragmentation caused by BC government-approved logging.

In May, the Wilderness Committee learned of the BC government’s intention to capture at least half and perhaps all of Canada’s remaining spotted owls for an experimental captive-breeding program. A Freedom Of Information request obtained by the Vancouver Sun also confirmed that the government would not reduce logging to preserve habitat for the owl, therefore jeopardizing their recovery chances.

“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 favour while doing nothing to recover the species. Where will they release the young owls – into a sea of cutblocks? The BC government needs to order an immediate halt to the logging at S & M Creek,” said Foy.

There are currently only six single spotted owls and four pairs remaining in the wild in BC, which is down from an estimated population of 500 pairs in the time before commercial logging began in the last century. Three single owls have been captured so far and are residing at the Langley-based Mountain View Conservation and Breeding Society.

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.

“If they had followed the Spotted Owl Recovery Team’s 2003 recommendations we wouldn’t be in this mess at S&M Creek today,” said Foy.

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