This was just posted earlier today in the Humboldt County North Coast Journal Blogspot: http://www.northcoastjournal.com/Blogthing/archives/2013/09/05/firefighters-shift-to-direct-attack-on-corral-complex
Nearly a thousand firefighters this week are going on the offensive in their battle against the Corral Complex wildfires burning in the Six Rivers National Forest, just east of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation. After two weeks of road-clearing, bulldozing and other “indirect” efforts at containment — and with milder weather forecast through Friday — fire crews saw an opportunity to move in.
“On Monday, firefighters began an aggressive attack on the 26 miles of open line along the fire’s edge,” says a Forest Service press release.
This “direct attack” strategy, which enlists hotshot crews and mass deliver of water by air, “is likely to contain the fire sooner, limit firefighter exposure, increase public safety and reduce final cost,” the press release states. The Corral Complex fires cover more than 12,000 acres and are 67 percent contained.
(For an inside look at the fire battles, see last week’s cover story, “Anatomy of a Fire Fight,” by Emily Hamann.)
Meanwhile, more than 200 more firefighters are battling blazes across extremely difficult terrain in the Forks/Orleans Complex, which includes the Butler Fire and the Salmon Fire near Forks of the Salmon. Those fires cover more than 20,000 acres and are just 55 percent contained.
Here’s the press release on the Corral Complex:
Since Monday, there has been a shift in fire suppression tactics on the Corral Complex. Incident Commander Jeanne Pincha-Tulley said, “We have a chance right now to contain this fire quickly and keep it about 6,000 acres smaller thanks to the excellent work done by California Team 5. The indirect line they put in place gives us a contingency plan if our plan doesn’t work, but if the weather pattern holds, we have a very high probability of success with direct attack.”
During the two previous weeks, firefighters completed indirect fire line to the west and south of the fire by developing a system of cleared roads connected to bulldozer lines which were tied into the north containment line in order to hold the oncoming fire. This indirect strategy was chosen when the fire was moving rapidly in steep terrain under conditions that were too hazardous for direct attack. The next step using the indirect strategy would be firing operations to remove unburned fuel between the indirect line and the main fire.
However, with the indirect line completed, and mild weather forecasted until Friday, California Team 3 recognized a window of opportunity to use an alternative strategy which is likely to contain the fire sooner, limit firefighter exposure, increase public safety and reduce final cost. This alternative direct attack strategy will use hotshot crews, mass-delivery of water by air, and medical response contingency resources to mitigate the risk of working in the complex terrain of the Trinity Alps Wilderness.
On Monday, firefighters began an aggressive attack on the 26 miles of open line along the fire’s edge, while the last four miles of indirect line were still being completed. Type 1 helicopters dropped 250,000 gallons of water along the fire perimeter, reducing the fire’s heat and creating areas that firefighters can now safely enter to construct direct handline or mop up hot spots. Seven hotshot crews hiked into the northwest and west sides of the fire and are camping out near the fireline during this multi-day campaign.
On Tuesday, two airtankers began dropping loads of clean water along the perimeter; particularly on the south side where near vertical terrain continues to prevent the use of handcrews. Aerial water delivery along the fire perimeter is typically done to support crews working on the ground. Intensive use of water along an inaccessible fire perimeter without crews is not typical. In this case, aircraft will systematically deliver mass-loads of water along the perimeter, targeting pockets of heat, burning snags, and other areas of concern. Both water drops to support handcrews and spot-cooling along the perimeter are being used on the Corral Complex. All firefighting strategies involve some level of risk which must be carefully weighed with risk mitigations and benefits.
The risks and mitigations associated with California Team 3’s current plan of direct attack are:
• The use of fixed winged aircraft and helicopters increases exposure to aircraft hazards, but is mitigated through the short duration of use, limiting pilot flight hours, and other aspects of the aviation safety plan.
• Trace amounts of retardant in airtankers could impact sensitive aquatic species, but is mitigated by doing initial drops on the ridge tops to avoid riparian areas and human drinking water supplies. Retardant is not being used in the wilderness, or on sensitive watersheds or cultural resources in the fire area.
• Use of handcrews in steep terrain is mitigated by using highly experienced hotshot crews with short term exposure, cooling the fire’s perimeter with mass-delivery of water, and providing support with Rapid Extraction Modules and a hoist capable helicopter for emergency medical response.
• A change in weather to hot dry conditions with a possible increase in wind or fire behavior, particularly an offshore east wind event which is more frequent in Northern California at this time of year, is mitigated by the contingency plan of using the indirect line and firing operations to contain the fire.
The benefits associated with California Team 3’s current plan of direct attack are: • Fire containment will be achieved more quickly.
• A shorter duration fire will reduce firefighters exposure to risks associated with heat, smoke, hazardous mountain roads, snags, fatigue, and steep terrain.
• Smoke impacts to communities will be reduced.
• Fire suppression costs will be reduced.
• The number of acres burned will be reduced.
• Fire repair and rehabilitation costs will be reduced.
• Using water without retardant will allow aerial attack both in drainages and on ridges, limiting fire spread from rolling burned material which has been a major contributor to fire growth.
• Negative impacts to local traffic caused by fire equipment on the roads will be reduced.
• Use of water rather than fire retardant will eliminate ecological concerns in riparian areas and protect wilderness values.
• Use of water rather than fire retardant will protect the drinking water supply for the Hoopa Valley community.
• Use of water rather than fire retardant will ensure effective firing operations if tactics must be changed in response to weather, since fire retardant makes it more difficult for vegetation to burn.
Billie Siddoway, whose brother, J.C. Siddoway, runs sheep near Fogg Hill, posted this warning about the wolf kill Saturday at the trailheads of Pole Canyon and Fourth of July trails.
Posted: Monday, August 19, 2013 10:25 am | Updated: 4:38 pm, Mon Aug 19, 2013.
Ken Levy/TVN Staff | 0 comments
U.S. Forest Service officials are asking people to stay out of an area where a large sheep kill was reported over the weekend.
Jay Pence, Teton Basin District ranger, said the sheep kill could attract a lot of people hoping to see predators coming to feed on the carcasses.
Ranchers and others are trying to deal with the situation, and visitors can hamper their activities.
“There are a lot more fun things to look at than dead sheep,” said Pence.
Idaho Wildlife Services confirmed Monday that 176 sheep were killed during a wolf attack near Fogg Hill and the Pole Canyon area early Saturday morning.
The animals belonged to the Siddoway Sheep Company and were grazing in the area about six miles south of Victor, according to a release from Siddoway. The attack, they said, occurred around 1 a.m.
Todd Grimm, director of the Wildlife Services Program, said his office confirmed the depredation Sunday. Many of the animals died from suffocation, since some apparently fell in front of the rest, resulting in a large pile-up.
“This was a rather unique situation,” said Grimm. “Most of the time they don’t pile up like this, but the wolves got them running.”
Only one animal seems to have been eaten in the attack, according to the Siddoway release.
“The sheep are not fenced,” said Billie Siddoway, in an email interview. “They move every few days to a new pasture within a designated area. The sheep are herded and monitored by two full-time herders, four herding dogs and at least four guard dogs.”
Grimm said there is already a “control action” in the area. Since July 3, 12 wolves have been lethally trapped, including nine pups. The goal is to take them all, he said.
“We expect that bears and other scavengers will soon locate the kill site,” said Billie Siddoway.
See the Teton Valley News Aug. 22 for the complete story.
Cascade Complex Fire at night. Picture taken August 8th, 2007, near Warm Lake, Valley County, Idaho. Photo by US Forest Service, provided courtesy of the Yellow Pine Times. Photographer unknown.
I worked with John Marker, a semi-regular contributor to this blog, and several others in putting together a pre-fire and post-fire analytical tool nearly five years ago. It was widely distributed and presented (and generally well received) to several key agencies and organizations through three fire seasons, but has gone nowhere: http://www.wildfire-economics.org/Checklist/index.html
Our intent was to develop a tool (“the one-pager”) so that local residents, landowners, and newspaper reporters could also be involved in gathering and interpreting data related to short-term and long-term costs of wildfires. By attaching their own values to the analysis it was thought that more realistic and widespread understanding of these events could take place over time and geographical location — both individually and collectively.
Our group formed a non-profit to build the mostly-completed informational website (http://www.wildfire-economics.org/) and to help develop this concept on a practical basis. We made two or three determined attempts to test this approach on and before specific fires at that time, but there was “no funding” available — even from the American Heart and Lung Association! People seemed more concerned with diesel exhausts and smoke-flavored wine grapes in California than in doing anything practical about considering actual wildfire damages to the environment, to their local communities, and to public health.
Now might be a better time for reconsidering this proposal, at least on a trial basis. People have seemingly been catching onto the “natural fire return interval” myth and other agency rationales for this unprecedented spate of catastrophic wildfires, and seem to finally begin questioning the “science” behind federal wildfire management policies the past quarter century (since 1987).
This issue is not going away anytime soon, despite political posturing and the claims of some environmental organizations. It is not a “climate change” issue anymore than it is a “natural process” issue. It is a resource management issue, as shown convincingly by the photographs of Derek Weidensee in this blog, and by the research findings of several forest and fire scientists and historians, including my own.
Unfortunately, the media has only lately begun realizing the flimsiness of the claims of the “natural fire” proponents and much of the public has continued to remain ignorant or misinformed on these issues as a result. Now might be a good time to begin substituting personal observations for past agency and media pronouncements and to begin taking the active management approaches needed to bring these predictable events under control.
There is no real reason to continue down this wasteful and destructive — and largely self-inflicted — path too much longer. Maybe the “one-pager” can begin to serve its intended purpose of helping to bring informed and afflicted citizens to the table.
Idaho Governor Butch Otter weighed in to today’s Idaho Statesman with the following editorial on spotted owls. I like the analogies between wolves, people, and owls that he presents. The editorial can be found here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/08/17/2710562/federal-plan-to-save-spotted-owls.html
By GOV. BUTCH OTTER
Consider Neanderthals. They were shorter, slower and less mobile than their cousins, modern humans. As a result, Neanderthals’ range stayed small and restricted over time while smarter, more adaptable humans spread across the globe. Eventually, the competition was too much for them and Neanderthals died out.
Now consider the northern spotted owl. It’s smaller, less aggressive and more specialized in its diet and habitat than its cousin, the barred owl. As a result, the spotted owl’s range stayed small and restricted over time while the barred owl spread from the East Coast to the Pacific. The competition was too much for the spotted owl, but they didn’t quite die out.
Instead, man intervened.
In 1990, the federal government tried to save the spotted owl by listing it as a “threatened species” and by shutting down logging on vast swaths of Northwest old-growth forests, destroying an industry and the communities it supported. Since that didn’t work, wildlife experts now want to try killing thousands of those bigger, stronger, more adaptable barred owls.
Clearly the Neanderthals could have used some federal experts and Endangered Species Act protections.
Meanwhile, John James Audubon and Charles Darwin are rolling over in their graves.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced plans to spend about $3 million to kill 3,603 barred owls in four areas of Oregon, Washington and northern California over the next four years. That works out to almost $833 for each dead barred owl.
Back in 1994, when the Northwest Forest Plan was launched to protect about 20 million acres of federal land from logging in defense of spotted owls, we all were assured that habitat was the key to their survival. We were told that abandoning an economy and a culture that had supported generations of people would pay off with the salvation of an “indicator species” and, by extension, a unique and irreplaceable ecosystem.
It sounded a lot like what’s by now become shop-worn shorthand for the insanity of war: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
As it turned out, that federally protected old-growth habitat did nothing for the spotted owl population, which has continued to decline. That’s a lot more than unfortunate for the timber towns and the families who used to live there. But now the Fish and Wildlife Service has identified the real culprit, and has it in its sights.
A final decision is expected this month on whether to “experiment” with the systematic killing of barred owls, which now outnumber spotted owls by as many as five to one in some locations.
We soon may have armed federal experts roaming through our forests, calling and then killing thousands of one type of owl to save another. You might recognize these folks as the same ones who “reintroduced” wolves to Idaho, and now they’re desperately trying to salvage what a misguided but powerful government policy has failed to achieve for decades.
What could possibly go wrong with that?
Like most federal programs, it figures to be LOPSOD — long on promises, short on delivery. But if it winds up working better than shutting down our forests did, which is a very low bar to clear, should we then start saving a place on the endangered species list for barred owls next?
Butch Otter is the governor of Idaho.
Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/08/17/2710562/federal-plan-to-save-spotted-owls.html#storylink=cpy
“Pinchot’s Principles” are said to have been developed during a series of lectures in the early 1900s at Yale Forestry School. They essentially constitute “his advice to guide the behavior of foresters in public office.” They were printed in the February 1994 issue of the Journal of Forestry, and The list and most recently of the Forest History Society blog: http://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/gifford-pinchots-ten-commandments/?utm_source=Forest+Timeline+newsletter+-+July+2013&utm_campaign=July+issue&utm_medium=email
Pinchot Principles
A public official is there to serve the public and not to run them.
Public support of acts affecting public rights is absolutely required.
It is more trouble to consult the public than to ignore them, but that is what you are hired for.
Find out in advance what the public will stand for; if it is right and they won’t stand for it, postpone action and educate them.
Use the press first, last and all the time if you want to reach the public.
Get rid of the attitude of personal arrogance or pride of attainment of superior knowledge.
Don’t try any sly or foxy politics because a forester is not a politician.
Learn tact simply by being honest and sincere, and by learning to recognize the point of view of the other man and meet him with arguments he will understand.
Don’t be afraid to give credit to someone else even when it belongs to you; not to do so is the sure mark of a weak man, but to do so is the hardest lesson to learn; encourage others to do things; you may accomplish many things through others that you can’t get done on your single initiative.
Don’t be a knocker; use persuasion rather than force, when possible; plenty of knockers are to be had; your job is to promote unity.
Don’t make enemies unnecessarily and for trivial reasons; if you are any good you will make plenty of them on matters of straight honesty and public policy, and you need all the support you can get.
This list was assembled as telephones and automobiles were first becoming established in larger US cities, and photography was becoming available to everyone. Before radio, television, airplane travel, and Internet communications.
KURT MILLER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER. An air tanker battling the Mountain Fire burning near Mountain Center makes a fire retardant drop on Tuesday afternoon, July 16, 2013.
My youngest son lives in a small desert community near Palm Springs. He says the skies there are currently filled with so much smoke that the sun looks like a “street lamp” and his swimming pool is becoming covered with ash. Here is the link: et/hemet-headlines-index/20130716-mountain-center-mountain-fire-burns-8000-acres-no-end-in-sight.ece
Here is the opening text to a comprehensive reporting of the fire:
No end is in sight for the wildfire that has blackened more than 12.5 square miles of trees and brush in the San Jacinto Mountains, where steep and inaccessible terrain is hampering firefighters and billowing smoke is hindering air tanker pilots.
At least a couple of burned homes have been spotted, but fire officials have not released a comprehensive tally of the damage in the sparsely settled region. The fire remains 10 percent contained.
The fire has forced residents of about 50 homes to evacuate, along with several hundred children from summer camps, a pet sanctuary and a Zen center.
The fire, which started Monday afternoon near Mountain Center, was burning aggressively through the timber and chapparal on Tuesday. For much of the day, wind was pushing the fire east toward Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs, U.S. Forest Service John Miller said.
That prompted an evacuation order for 24 homes in the Andreas Canyon Club, a cluster of 1920s houses on the east side of the mountains. Miller said a strike team of engines was stationed near the homes, which Palm Springs firefighters believed were mostly unoccupied.
Miller said the fire had burned onto the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians said it was helping assess the fire threat to the reservation and the Canyons recreation area, which it manages.
“The bigger picture is that these acts of nature have become more frequent and more violent, and it’s not going to stop,” he predicted. “It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse, and one of the reasons it’s going to get worse in the Northwest where we are is that there’s too goddamn much timber out there that ought to be cut or burned deliberately.”
Timber sale after timber sale, and prescribed burn after prescribed burn, are being stopped, he said. The woods are full of tinder. Couple that with longer and hotter fire seasons due to a variety of reasons, including climate change, beetle kill and drought and the outlook isn’t rosy.
Here is a recent press release, including requested Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documentation, from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). I have to agree with Hartl where he quotes himself:
“The Fish and Wildlife Service’s actions demonstrate a near total lack of transparency and scientific integrity,” said Hartl. “If the Service had followed this same logic 20 years ago, there would be no wolves in Yellowstone National Park today — and no wolves roaming across the northern Rocky Mountains . . .”
I was unaware that all listing and delisting was legally required to be based on “the best available science,” as stated earlier in the release, but I agree with Hartl’s assessments of apparent agenda-based science driving USFWS policies. I also agree that if the USFWS had been transparent and openly political about the process of transplanting wolves into Yellowstone 20 years ago, they wouldn’t be there today. I’m on the side of the elk and local landowners on this one: contrary to Hartl’s concerns, I think that no wolves in those locations was mostly a good thing.
Here’s the Press Release:
For Immediate Release, June 27, 2013
Contact: Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121
Endangered Species Act’s Science-based Mandate Sidestepped for Political Expediency
WASHINGTON— Documents obtained from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show last month’s proposal to remove most federal protections for gray wolves was preordained three years ago in a series of meetings with state wildlife agencies.
Under the Endangered Species Act, decisions to list and delist species must be made solely on the basis of the best available science. In this case the newly obtained documents suggest the Service pushed ahead to delist wolves without scientific support in order to obtain a political outcome desired by state fish and game agencies.
Specifically, the documents show that the Fish and Wildlife Service constrained the possible geographic scope of wolf recovery based on perceptions of “what can the public tolerate” and “where should wolves exist” rather than where suitable habitat for wolves exists or what is scientifically necessary for recovery. The meetings left state agencies in a position to dictate the fate of gray wolves across most of the lower 48 states.
Documents Reveal State Officials, Not Scientists, Led Decision to Strip Endangered Species Wolf_FOIA_document_excerptsProtections From Wolves Across Country
“This process made a mockery of the spirit of the Endangered Species Act. These documents show that years ago the Fish and Wildlife Service effectively handed over the reins on wolf recovery to state fish and game agencies, many of which are openly hostile to wolves,” said Brett Hartl, endangered species policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “In order to ensure this politically contrived outcome, the Fish and Wildlife Service has spent the past three years cherry-picking scientific research that justifies the predetermined outcome that wolves don’t need protection anymore.”
In August 2010 officials from a select group of state fish and game agencies were invited to a week-long workshop at the Fish and Wildlife training center in West Virginia to effectively decide the future of gray wolf recovery in the United States. The decisions made at the meeting were largely adopted in the agency’s June 2013 proposal to end federal protections for gray wolves across most of the lower 48.
As part of this process, the Fish and Wildlife Service also excluded any consideration of further protection for wolves in Colorado and Utah for either gray wolves coming from the north or Mexican wolves coming from the south. This was based solely on the opposition of the two states’ wildlife agencies and despite extensive wolf habitat in the two states. The documents also show that Fish and Wildlife promised that the input of state wildlife agencies “with a cooperative management role” would be given greater weight in any future decision-making and that it would develop a wolf delisting rule to “implement [the] understanding” reached at the 2010 meeting.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service’s actions demonstrate a near total lack of transparency and scientific integrity,” said Hartl. “If the Service had followed this same logic 20 years ago, there would be no wolves in Yellowstone National Park today — and no wolves roaming across the northern Rocky Mountains. The Service needs to go back to the drawing board and let the scientific facts guide how to recover wolves across the millions of acres of suitable wolf habitat remaining in the western United States and the Northeast.”
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 500,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Dr. Ben Stout in spotted owl habitat, near Mt. Jefferson Wilderness on west shore of Round Lake, May 15, 2004 (Photo by B. Zybach)
By Dr. Bob Zybach, PhD
Program Manager, www.ORWW.org
June 19, 2013
[Note: This is the text version of an illustrated article written for the current July 3rd issue of Oregon Fish & Wildlife Journal.]
Spotted owls have now been in the news for more than 40 years; were listed as an endangered species via the Endangered Species Act in 1990; have been actively managed since 1992 by classification of millions of acres of federal forestlands in Washington, Oregon, and California as “critical habitat” — and have still declined in population at an estimated rate of 2-3% a year ever since.
No one will argue that these results are based on political decisions that have had unexpected and wide-ranging cultural, biological, economical and aesthetic repercussions; particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Some have even referred to these circumstances as a “major social experiment.” According to federal legislation and much of the popular press, spotted owl legislative decisions have been based on the “Best Available Science,” the “newest” scientific information, and “scientific consensus.”
But were they really? And even if true, was all of this “newest science” used to make wise or thoughtful legislative decisions? Efforts to stabilize or increase spotted owls numbers have cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, been partly responsible for unprecedented numbers of catastrophic wildfires, caused the loss of tens of thousands tax-producing jobs for western US families, created economic hardships for hundreds of rural counties, towns, and industries, and indirectly resulted in the deaths of millions of native plants and animals.
Was that part of the plan? Should we continue down the same path to “recovery” that has resulted from these decisions? My personal concern is not the politics involved in making such decisions – that’s what politics are for. My concern is that the scientific process is being misused and degraded via such politics, thereby reducing public faith in the credibility and capability of science in general and scientists in particular. Also, I think the public should be directly involved in such decision-making processes and not continue to leave it up to university and agency committees and the courts. Lawyers on both sides of the table get paid in these disputes, and so do politicians and government scientists; it is just the loggers, truck drivers, sawmill workers, foresters, engineers, tree planters, and construction workers — and their families and communities — that are left with the consequences.
The American public has been told that the scientific information used to drive spotted owl political decisions has been “peer reviewed,” often with the declaration that it is the latest and best information available for making such decisions (and thus leaving “science” and scientists as scapegoats when things don’t work out; i.e., “politics”). The quality of peer reviewed science, however, depends on the chosen method of review, the qualifications of reviewers, and the review criteria – which are typically expressed as a series of questions.
The US agencies in charge of managing public resources have not been forthcoming about the scientific information and quality of peer reviews used to drive their policies and decisions. There is no logical reason the American public has been excluded from this process, nor is there any logical reason to continue such exclusion. The following five questions are intended to begin a more transparent and scientifically credible review of the “science-based” management decisions involving spotted owls. These criteria are just as valid for public discussion as they are for scientific review, and I believe should become part of the public debate on these animals.
1. Are Spotted Owls Even a Species?
This is a trickier question than you might suspect. When I was a kid in public schools I was taught that animals that could biologically breed and produce viable offspring were considered the same species. A few anomalies such as lions, tigers, horses, and burros usually stretched the limits of these discussions; otherwise, viable offspring was the rule. The generation of Americans who taught this basic approach to biological taxonomy were members of the same generation that passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, as spotted owls were first being introduced to the general public. What was the principal intent of this legislation? More importantly, how were they defining “species?”
The most common owl in North America is called the “hoot owl,” or “barred owl.” It looks and sounds almost exactly like a spotted owl, occupies the same range, and has successfully bred and produced viable young with spotted owls. Are spotted owls therefore, just the western-most cousins of the brown-eyed hoot owl family? Or did some committee of nameless scientists give them separate Latin names that somehow transformed them into separate species?
And if they really are the same species, shouldn’t this whole “critical habitat” operation be shut down ASAP and the people who assembled it be held accountable?
The analogy I have been using for several years is probably not politically correct, but makes this key point in terms most audiences can relate to: ‘there are far greater variations in physiology, vocalizations, coloration, preferred habitats, diet, and appearance between a Pygmy and a Swede than between a barred owl and a spotted owl.’ Sometimes some people seem uncomfortable by this comparison, so potatoes, red and yellow roses or German shepherds and French poodles can be substituted as discussion points if the audience is more familiar with those species.
The point is, humans have mastered selective breeding and domestication of many species of plants and animals – and now we are trying to do the same thing with a particular group of wild owls. The public, at least, should know what it is spending such enormous sums of money on – and if it’s only to breed a particular variety of common hoot owl, shouldn’t that information be known and perhaps reconsidered?
2. What is so “Critical” About “Habitat”?
In 1992 the federal government designated several million acres of Pacific Northwest forests as “critical habitat” for spotted owls, thereby fundamentally changing the management methods and focus of our public forests. These lands were no longer managed by the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management foresters, but rather put into the hands of US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) biologists – who declared them off-limits to logging and most other commercial activities. These same lands had been used for subsistence and recreation by generations of American families, and for hundreds of generations of local Indian families before them. Now it was being made into a massive and unprecedented reserve for a single species: spotted owls.
These so-called “critical” properties were designated by dozens of 2.7 mile diameter “crop circles,” supposedly based on the “home range” of a nesting spotted owl. The final result was much like the cookies or biscuits shaped for your mom with drinking glasses or teacups when you were first learning to bake. The circles mostly correlated to owl sightings and were concentrated in public lands the USFWS did not want logged. Thus, about seven million acres of some of the world’s finest timberlands were abruptly removed from management for human uses for the first time in history. These designations were transformative and unprecedented, yet quickly adopted without independent scientific review or substantive public discussion.
Environmental activists and some scientists have long claimed that spotted owl habitat used to exist in far greater amounts before 1940 than it does now — therefore, spotted owl numbers must have been greater in the unknown past than they are now. This is a baseless assumption that cannot be documented and therefore needs serious critical examination before acceptance – much less widespread adoption at an enormous cost to taxpayers or treatment as a “fact.”
In 1996 I wrote a research report for a Portland, Oregon law firm dealing with this issue. My study area was the Columbia River Gorge, including thousands of acres of private and federal forestlands along both Oregon and Washington sides. My findings showed – and documented – that spotted owl “habitat” (by current definitions at that time) was likely never more than 5% or 10% of the total study area during anytime since the 1790s. Subsequent research over two million other forested acres in western Oregon have yielded similar documented findings.
There is no demonstrated correlation between owl populations and artificial designations of “critical habitat” zoning. These areas appear far more critical for the survival of agency biologists and ecologists than for owls of any stripe or spot. Predator-prey relationships seem to have much more to do with owl populations than forest structure – an assertion borne out by efforts used to restore endangered condor populations, which are kept and bred in cages, and by the fact that at least one agency wildlife biologist caught and kept a spotted owl as a family pet for 30 years.
3. Are Barred Owls a Living Example of “Natural Selection?”
“Darwin’s Finches” are 15 species of closely related birds – but with entirely different beaks and feeding habits, adapted to their local environments. These birds, and their individual variations, were first noted by Charles Darwin in his exploration of the Galapagos Islands in 1835, and were instrumental in the development of his theories of biological evolution and “natural selection.”
Darwin’s finches aren’t really finches at all, but passerines: members of an order of songbirds and perching birds containing more than 110 families and more than 5,000 species – including Darwin’s 15 finches. Passerines are the second most numerous vertebrate families on the planet, following bony fishes, and the basis for most subsequent findings and theories regarding evolution.
In the mid-1900s, Darwin’s thoughts on natural selection were being refined into “ecological niche” theory, a systematic look at “how ecological objects fit together to form enduring wholes” (Patten and Auble 1981). It is basically an effort to systematize Darwin’s theories so they can be diagrammed and programmed into mathematical computer models.
Spotted owls were first described in California in 1857, in Arizona in 1872, in Washington in 1892, and in Oregon in 1914. Barred owl were first described in 1799 in the eastern US, expanded their range westward to Montana in the 1920s, and were interbreeding with spotted owls in Western Oregon and Washington by 1975. From all historical perspectives, it appears as if two isolated populations of hoot owls – western and eastern – have coincidentally expanded their ranges during the past century or so, and have now joined together to form viable hybrids that are replacing former spotted owl populations. How is this any different than Europeans and Africans colonizing North America and replacing Native American populations as they “expanded their range?”
In 2007 the US Fish & Wildlife Service began a long-term program of systematically killing barred owls in order to maintain the genetic purity of local spotted owl populations. You can use dogs or roses – or humans – as analogies here to see how artificial breeding precedence is being used. Is this a god-like attempt to control evolution, simply another human effort to artificially produce desired breeding characteristics, or some kind of ecological niche theory testing opportunity?
Depending on the rationale used to justify these actions, the next questions become: “Is this method logical or practical?” And, “How much does it cost?”
4. How Reliable Are Computerized Predictive Models?
Modeling isn’t rocket science – it isn’t even a science. Computer sciences made rapid gains in quality during the 1970s and 1980s, with one result often being modeling predictions accepted as reasonable substitutions for actual field observations and independent analysis — especially by other modelers.
Wildlife models are almost exactly the same thing as “Sims” computer games, but with a lot more acronyms and algorithms in their attempts to mimic actual life. And then predict the future. Making predictions and comparing them with actual outcomes is a hallmark of scientific methodology, but when predictions are based on unstated assumptions, unproven theories, and “informed” speculation – all typical modeling characteristics — then the product can be little different than any other computer game. Models are a very useful tool for summarizing current knowledge and suggesting possible futures, but they have proven no more capable of predicting future conditions and catastrophes than ancient oracles or modern religious leaders and politicians. Or most scientists.
In his book ”Best Available Science (BAS): Fundamental Metrics for Evaluation of Scientific Claims” (Moghissi et al. 2010), Dr. Alan Moghissi categorizes computerized predictive models into five basic types. Those typically used to model wildlife populations and habitat correlations he terms “primary” and “secondary” models. Despite their inherent weaknesses, he observes that society “has no other choice” but to use primary models in making certain decisions. Regarding secondary models, however, he states, “a society that bases its decisions on these models must accept the notion that it may waste its resources.”
Often, the only people said to be “qualified” to assess models and modeling methods are “other modelers.” The results have not been good. It is time to shine some daylight on this industry and have actual environmental scientists and concerned members of the public take a better look at “the man behind the curtain.”
5. What Do Government Scientists Say About Owl Recovery Plans?
Certainly, if the US government was going to spend billions of our dollars, ruin the economies of hundreds of our communities, and kill millions of wild plants and animals in the process, they would have at least used “peer reviewed” science – and been transparent in their methods — wouldn’t they?
In 2007 a number of prominent university and agency scientists that had help create the spotted owl “recovery plans” were asked, in essence, by USFWS to review their own work. Not surprisingly, they decided it was pretty good stuff and – despite declining spotted owl numbers – we should be doing more of it.
The “Scientific Review of the Draft Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan and Reviewer Comments” was written by Steven Courtney, Jerry Franklin, Andy Carey, Miles Hemstrom, and Paul Hessburg, several of who also appear prominently in their review bibliography – often for work done for, or used by, the USFWS. Despite the obvious potential for bias with this arrangement, the work was conducted openly and transparently and resulted in several useful observations and recommendations, including:
*Current models of owls and their habitats are largely heuristic. Hence decisions on important issues such as reserve size, spacing, etc., must be made with relatively weak predictive tools.
*The approach of the Draft Recovery Plan for designating habitat goals is deeply flawed. However the need to set locally appropriate and sustainable habitat goals remains a valid goal.
*The threat from wildfire is underestimated in the Draft Recovery Plan . . . This threat is likely to increase given both current forest conditions, and future climatic change.
Conclusions
1) Federal spotted owl regulations have been implemented during the past 25 years at an enormous cost to American taxpayers — particularly those living in rural timber-dependent areas of the western US.
2) Current plans are a proven failure. Targeted owl populations continue to decline despite an unprecedented public investment into their maintenance.
3) Barred owls and spotted owls may be the same species, in which there is no logical need to continue managing for the survival of either one. Or, they may be different species and we are simply witnessing natural selection in progress.
4) The scientific basis for these plans should be considered in full light of public and scientific review before they are continued much longer; the methods by which agency modelers and university theorists apparently dictate federal policies should also be publicly reconsidered.
5) Scientific research and review teams dealing with spotted owl and critical habitat issues should also include scientists with an understanding of current and historical roles of people in the environment, such as landscape historians and cultural anthropologists.
This blog has featured a number of posts regarding Spotted Owls for the past 2+ years:
https://ncfp.wordpress.com/page/3/?s=spotted+owls
On Friday the AFRC Newsletter was distributed by email and featured a short editorial regarding spotted owls by Ross Mickey of the American Forests Resource Council (AFRC):
Although Ross is supporting an idea called the Social Services Support Zone (yup,aka “SSSZ”), it is some of his comments regarding spotted owls — and their enormous economic cost to US citizens — that are most chilling. If true, of course. Most of the economic information is given in tables that I couldn’t figure out how to post, so you’ll have to use the PDF link to see them. They cover every NF with designated spotted owl “habitat,” and what that habitat costs in terms of foregone sales and incomes to local citizens of counties containing these lands.
I’ve reprinted the text from Mickey’s editorial below (yes, I know either he or Spellcheck misspelled “principles”), but I recommend visiting the tables he has put together in relation to the economic cost of these animals. Also, some of you may be more interested in the SSSZ concept in relation to NSOs and NGO’s, so there’s that, too.
–Bob
Social Services Support Zones
The northern spotted owl is the driving force behind the collapse of dozens of timber dependent rural communities across the northwest, devastating local governments and drastically reducing the basic social services these governments can provide. Despite setting aside millions of acres for the owl, its numbers continue to decline because it is being overtaken by its larger cousin, the barred owl, by a ratio of 4 to 1. Without a massive effort to reduce the barred owl population (which the public will not allow), the spotted owl population will continue to decline no matter how many acres are dedicated to it.
The FWS has dictated that any area that spotted owls have used in the last 25 years need to be protected even if spotted owls have not used them for decades. They also dictate that areas that might support spotted owls need to be protected even though no spotted owl has ever used them. These are called “predicted” owl sites. The FWS estimates there are about 3,800 “known” sites and an undisclosed number of “predicted” sites. Most of these sit es are not being used by the spotted owl because they are infested with barred owls. Each one of these vacant protected areas contain billions of dollars worth of timber that could be dedicated to supporting local communities rather than barred owls.
[First Table] Below is the estimated total volume and value of spotted owl sites listed by each national forest.
[Second Table] The table below shows the annual volume and value production of these owls sites if they were managed under the principals [sic] of long-term sustained yield.
The Willamette for example, has 618 known sites and 124 predicated sites where spotted owls have never been known to exist. Of these 124 predicted sites, 46 are outside of Congressionally withdrawn areas. If these 46 predicted sites were classified as Social Services Support Zones (SSSZ’s) for the purpose of supporting local governments, $2,187,202,848 ( yes, that’s 2 billion!!) could be generated from the first harvest and provide a long term sustainable income of $46,487,524 per year forever.
Every national forest and BLM District is protecting predicted owl sites. I believe that protecting our rural communities is far more important than protecting virtual, computer generated predicted owl sites, and we should dedicate these lands to them the same way the FWS is dedicating them to only support barred owls.
