Legal Intervention Defends Northern Spotted Owl Habitat

PORTLAND, Ore.— Conservation Northwest and other groups across the Pacific Northwest intervened this week in a timber industry lawsuit seeking to remove habitat protections for the northern spotted owl across millions of acres of forests in Washington, Oregon and California.

Old forest habitat critical to northern spotted owl survival and recovery was first designated in 1992 and revised in 2012. The timber industry then challenged it in court, resulting in a settlement with the first Trump administration and a January 2021 designation removing 3.5 million acres from critical habitat protection on federal lands. Months later, under a new administration, it was modified again, restoring most of the owl’s habitat protections. The current lawsuit seeks to remove protection from 3.5 million acres of old forest habitat.

“Everything needs a home to survive,” said Dave Werntz, science and conservation director at Conservation Northwest. “The northern spotted owl needs large tracts of mature and old-growth forest habitat that are well distributed across the landscape.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protected the northern spotted owl, which occurs only in the older forests of the Pacific Northwest, as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. In 2020, because of continued loss of the old forests where they need to live and competition with the invasive barred owl, the Service found northern spotted owls are endangered and facing imminent danger of extinction.

Conservation Northwest, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Cascadia Wildlands, and Environmental Protection Information Center are represented by Susan Jane Brown of Silvix Resources. Other intervenors include Bird Alliance of Oregon, Center for Biological Diversity, Klamath Forest Alliance, and Oregon Wild.

Contact: Dave Werntz, Conservation Northwest, (360) 319-9949 dwerntz@conservationnw.org