How to save the Spotted Owls

[Mattyou]

Now we know what we are going to need to do to save the Spotted Owl.

After reading the article I think it will work.

http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2011/02/envirofascists-1.html

Here is more on this:
http://robertd.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/moonbats-turn-to-shotguns-to-save-meal-ticket/

 

[Mattyou]

Here is another source:
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/may...kills-species/
This is actually a few years old. Wonder how it's working out for us??

 

[LRM]

I implore you to look to scientific literature itself to make your own decisions rather than internet articles that would use the words "moonbat" or "tree-hugger" to describe the USFWS. It is very easy to be a Monday morning quarterback but unimaginably difficult to develop an adaptive management strategy to recover a species on the brink of extinction.

 

[Mattyou]

Protecting the northern spotted owl from wildfire and killing a competing owl should restore the controversial species in 30 years, federal scientists said Friday.
"Unless the barred owl threat is lessened, land management alone will not recover the owl," said Ren Lohoefener, director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Pacific region.
The shotgunning of barred owls, a cousin of the spotted owl that encroached from back East on its old growth turf, to see if it improves spotted owl numbers is part of the final Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan released Friday by the Fish and Wildlife Service. So is a new strategy to thin fire-prone forests, leaving behind patches of spotted owl habitat.
That strategy goes for more than 1.1 million acres of timberland between Redding and the Oregon border, said Joan Jewett, spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific region. Overall cost of the owl’s recovery is estimated to be $489 million, Lohoefener said.
By thinning forests in dry, fire-ready landscapes, the odds of a major wildfire wiping out swaths of owl habitat will be reduced, said Paul Phifer, recovery plan leader for the Fish and Wildlife Service. He said the size of the individual patches hadn’t been determined yet, but they would make up 30 percent to 35 percent of the landscape.

http://www.redding.com/news/2008/may/17/recovery-plan-kills-species/

 

[Mattyou]

After several failed attempts over the past two decades to save northern spotted owls, federal wildlife officials are expected to announce a controversial plan to kill a competitor owl species in an effort to level the playing field.
In its draft environmental impact statement to be released early this summer, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will likely suggest taking to the woods with shotguns to control the dominant barred owl population and encourage rejuvenation of the spotted owl, a conservation icon.
FWS has employed the expertise of an environmental ethicist to guide the discussions between biologists and environmentalists who are split on the issue.
"There's no winner in that debate," said Bob Sallinger, conservation director with the Portland Audubon Society in Oregon.
Doubts about the plan cover a gamut of issues, the first being feasibility. Biologists estimate hundreds of barred owls would have to be killed each year at an annual cost of about $1 million.
Others see the plan as interfering with natural selection.
"Population dynamics between two native species should not be artificially manipulated," said Blake Murden, wildlife and fisheries director for Port Blakely Tree Farms in Tumwater, Wash.
Murden says barred owls are thriving because of their adaptability while the more specialized spotted owls are easily affected by environmental changes.
"It's a generalist and a specialist, and invariably the generalist will win," Murden said.
Still others say a clamp on federal timber sales -- an effort to save the spotted owls' old-growth habitat -- has and will continue to hurt industry to benefit a species that may not be recoverable.
A limited experiment on private California timberland showed that spotted owls returned every time barred owls in the area were killed.
Biologist Lowell Diller, who holds a scientific collection permit to shoot barred owls, estimates a measured reduction of the barred owl population -- perhaps 10 to 20 percent -- would do the trick.
Then again, it might not.
"The worst thing would be to spend millions, kill a bunch of barred owls, and get no treatment effect," he said.


http://rlch.org/news/save-owl-species-others-may-be-shot

 

[Mattyou]

I implore you to look to scientific literature itself to make your own decisions rather than internet articles that would use the words "moonbat" or "tree-hugger" to describe the USFWS. It is very easy to be a Monday morning quarterback but unimaginably difficult to develop an adaptive management strategy to recover a species on the brink of extinction.

If you have more information feel free to post it.

 

[ballinouttacntrol]

does it matter? world's ending in 2012 anyways

 

[LRM]

If you have more information feel free to post it.

What sort of information would you like? I'm not quite sure what you're asking or trying to show with the above posts. Should I assume that you have already made up your mind, that anything I can give you access to would be ignored and that this was merely a challenge of some sort?

 

[Mattyou]

What sort of information would you like? I'm not quite sure what you're asking or trying to show with the above posts. Should I assume that you have already made up your mind, that anything I can give you access to would be ignored and that this was merely a challenge of some sort?

Not at all. I think it is funny more than anything that the solution to saving the Spotted Owl includes kiling Barred Owls and cutting down trees. The first few links used moonbat and tree hugger so I posted a few more sources that dont include catchy phrases that stereo type enviromentalists as .
I am not a scientist nor did I sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night. If you have information concerning the progress of this practice since it was determined in 2008 to be the solution, how is it working out for us and the Spotted Owl? How many Barred Owls have we killed and as a result how many new Spotted Owls have been documented? I would like to know, thats all.

 

[LRM]

Not at all. I think it is funny more than anything that the solution to saving the Spotted Owl includes kiling Barred Owls and cutting down trees. The first few links used moonbat and tree hugger so I posted a few more sources that dont include catchy phrases that stereo type enviromentalists as .
I am not a scientist nor did I sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night. If you have information concerning the progress of this practice since it was determined in 2008 to be the solution, how is it working out for us and the Spotted Owl? How many Barred Owls have we killed and as a result how many new Spotted Owls have been documented? I would like to know, thats all.

Ahh, okay. Give me a couple days and I should be able to scrounge up some decent information for you. Its the weekend here and I spend my weekdays researching so I need some down time before I start again on my time off.

One quick piece of info though is in regards to the species in question. Spotted Owls are specialists to old growth forests and barred owls are habitat generalists. One of the things that happens when there has been some event to cause a decline in a population, like the original decline in spotted owls from logging, is that a niche opens up that was once filled.

Think of a niche like a job. With fewer spotted owls because of the smaller amount of suitable habitat, the next natural progression was for barred owls to move in and fill the job. Once there, they aren't going to leave. Their population can keep growing in areas that aren't old growth as well, unlike the spotted owl. It is a lot like weeds, although that is a sort of deceptive analogy.

So the logical management is to make sure you can keep what old growth habitat you have available and "weed the garden". Old growth if you were confused refers to a fully matured forest, it can take anywhere from 90-200years to get old growth. As forests mature, habitat structure changes and there is a progression of species colonization that occurs. Some species can only live in primary growth, some only in secondary growth, some old growth and some can live anywhere. Pretty much like how you will find raccoons going through your garbage if you live in the suburbs but you'll never find say a lynx going through it.