Oregon Public Broadcasting

A new study published in the journal Conservation Biology alleges major flaws in the federal plan to recover the threatened Northern Spotted Owl.

As Rob Manning reports, the study presses federal officials to back off plans to expand logging projects on the drier, eastern side of the Cascades.

The recovery plan offers guidance for restoring the spotted owl. Four researchers, including lead author, Chad Hanson with the University of California, Davis, set out to test one of the plan’s underlying assumptions: that wildfires are getting worse.

Chad Hanson: “Most people assume that fires are getting increasingly more severe, but what’s interesting is that the data’s not showing that. And our results are consistent with an analysis done by the United States Geological Survey, for California, Oregon, and Washington.”

But Tom Spies, a researcher with the U.S. Forest Service in Corvallis, says Hanson’s study is not consistent with other long-term studies.

Tom Spies: “For example, we had a paper that was published that they do cite, but not that particular result, which shows that there was much less fire before 1990, and since 1990, there’s been considerably more high-severity fire in the region.”

Whether or not wildfires are intensifying is important from a policy perspective. If they are intensifying, that would help the case for logging, to reduce fire fuels.

But study author, Chad Hanson, says the feds should be careful about ramping up logging.  He says logging hasn’t proven to be a successful recovery strategy.

Scientists tend to agree that spotted owls can live in slightly charred areas. But there’s disagreement about how they fare in badly burned habitat. Hanson says those badly burned areas can be good for the owls.

Chad Hanson: “The point is, that the assumption that high severity is wholly negative for spotted owls, is also not supported by the scientific data.”

Tom Spies with the Forest Service says that Hanson’s study does properly advise better monitoring in the future – with an eye toward a fundamental dilemma facing spotted owl recovery efforts.

Spies says on the one hand, forest thinning degrades owl habitat slightly.

Tom Spies:  “But if you don’t reduce those fuels, there’s a chance that fire will spread and burn up the owl habitat.”

Meantime, climate scientists say that wildfire risk will likely increase, although researcher Hanson says that, too, is not a simple equation.

In the end, the Obama Administration is considering revisions to the recovery plan, in the face of new studies and legal pressure from the timber industry and environmental groups.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife official says attorneys will announce their intentions for the owl later this month.