Spotted Owls Dieing Da!!

[Longhunter]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100354,00.html

It wasn't logging killing the Owls. Hmmm!

[outdoor.spec.ops]

I am not an expert on the owls, but I did see my first Spotted Owl this year bow hunting, no where near old growth forests, actually in 10-12 year old reprod. Maybe they are learning to adapt?

[TheRogue]

Yes, the spotted owl thing was a joke from the beginning. Do a search on Jack Ward Thomas, the figurehead for the owl studies. If you find some of his later stuff, look for some of his statements about the early years. They didn't ever find the owls in the second-growth and alder forests, because they never looked!! Spotted owls didn't exist east of HWY 97...because they never looked. He admits to that now, and that the "science" behind the whole listing was not necessarily wrong, but very incomplete.

The biggest threat to spotted owls now is more likely the barred owl, because it agressively cross-breeds with the spotted owl. Much like the whitetails are taking over traditional mule deer habitat across the west.

Yes, the owl was a poster child.

Sometimes, I think we humans take ourselves WAY too seriously, that we are the only influence on the environment.

TR

[Grantspastor]

The only spotted owl I've ever seen was at Brushy Bar on the Rogue. Good sized trees but definitely not old growth. I think he was eyeing my cooler...I know the bears down there sure do.

[skein]

Hey Straydog, ROFLMAO!

Fire has always been a part of the eco system and the faster we learn how to manage it rather than simply suppress it, the better off the forests, the fish and ultimatly, we, will be.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Think prevention.

You need to slip out of your office and come take a hike with me over in the Toolbox Complex devastation from year before last. Not much green tender browse sprouting up over there. And not many animals left either. Just devastation.

PS. I slipped into my flame-proof suit before I ever made that first post. I'll be fine. Go for it.

Skein

[ 10-17-2003, 01:24 PM: Message edited by: skein ]

[Straydog]

Skein,

Glad I could provide a Friday chuckle.
:smile:
Hey, you and I can both probably show each other several places that have been devastated by fires. No suprises there.

I don't know the area you refer to but wonder if it had been logged in the past.

You seem to ignore the fact that there were lots of virgin forests around in the '40's when industrial logging really took off. Why hadn't they burned up, holding to your logic?

Thinking prevention is part of what got us where we are today.

While the Sotted Owl may have indeed been the poster child of the anti-logging movement, Smokey Bear was the poster child of the pro- logging movement.

Unfortunately, the pendulum rarely if ever stops in the middle.

Bottom line is, fire has indeed always been a part of the natural order and only after we started meddling with things has it become such an issue.

[ 10-17-2003, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: Straydog ]

[DanS]

skein,

You might want to look around the Mt. St. Helens area for a picture of nature coming back from devastating events.

[skein]

While the Sotted Owl may have indeed been the poster child of the anti-logging movement, Smokey Bear was the poster child of the pro- logging movement.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Smokey wasn't the poster child of the pro-logging movement, but rather the pro-supression movement, which worked pretty well until the loggers were shut out of the forests and somebody announced that the debris on the ground should be left there to decompose. Only it didn't. It turned to kindling.

The biggest fires I can remember have come after the spotted owl fiasco and the hands-off concept for forest management. Might be interesting to look for forest fire records, say, since the Tillamook burn, which if my history is correct, raced through miles and miles of incredible old-growth.

Skein

[Straydog]

Originally posted by skein:
Smokey wasn't the poster child of the pro-logging movement, but rather the pro-supression movement,

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Which is another way of saying Forest Service whose primary mission at the time was to provide as much income as possible from the Federal Forests via logging.

Interesting you attempt to blame the largest fires on the conditions created by the Spotted Owl yet turn around and suggest looking at the Tillamook Burn (pre S.O. fiasco) to support your case.................? :whazzup:
Now I am starting to LMAO!

[ 10-17-2003, 01:59 PM: Message edited by: Straydog ]

[FrogPond]

Originally posted by Straydog:

Fire has always been a part of the eco system and the faster we learn how to manage it rather than simply suppress it, the better off the forests, the fish and ultimatly, we, will be.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">So, to manage a fire, do you control it before, after or while it is burning?

[Straydog]

Frogpond,

Not claiming to be an expert but common sense tells me "all of the above".

One of the first missions should be to clear the tons of fuel that has grown up post logging in the form of underbrush and small diameter hard and soft woods.

[ 10-17-2003, 02:03 PM: Message edited by: Straydog ]

[FrogPond]

SD-

To manage a forest fire while it is burning...requires fire fighters/fire suppression measures. The variability of environmental conditions (i.e. weather & terrain) create the problems we have today.

To manage a forest fire after the fire has destroyed an area is, by common sense, ineffective. (Failure)

To manage a forest fire before it starts, is called what? Forest management?

"Common sense" says we need to manage the only variable we have control over...the forests.
I am just stating that we cannot take a hands off approach to our forests. I do believe they are a valuable natural resource. I also believe that a nation with valuable natural resources holds an dominant place in the world economy. If we were not able to provide marketable goods from our natural resources we would be a 3rd world country. In the timber holding areas of this country we must manage the forests not only for fire, flora, & fauna; but also for marketable products to sustain our economy.

Yes alternative products are, or may be, available... Go ahead and use them, they need your support!

[foxer]

Log away!! Oregon needs the jobs and trees are a renewable resource. The Clinton plan allowed for logging but apparently that was too much for Kulongowski? In the big scheme of things, trees grow back, but not at the rate that human life ends. Hey, the earth will be around for another million or so years unless we blow it up, so what if it takes 100 yrs for a tree to get to old growth size? Drop in the bucket. If we lived to say 300 yrs old, would that change your mind?

[FrogPond]

If we (humans) lived to be 300, I bet all of the worlds natural resources would already be gone...including us. And the cycle would begin again.

Timber is a crop that takes many years to mature. I could argue the same point (at the other end of the spectrum) that if timber matured as fast as say...wheat, would you change your mind?

[Longhunter]

Interesting site

http://idahoforests.org/fires3.htm

The West is Burning Up!

STORIES
WAS THE 1910 FIRE THE LARGEST?
Evergreen Magazine, Winter Edition 1994-1995
Parts from The Big Blowup

No one can say for certain that the 1910 fire was the largest forest fire ever, but if size alone is the measure, it was indeed the largest forest fire in U.S. history. Other U.S. fires - including some listed below - were more deadly, but none moved as swiftly or as savagely over such a vast uncharted expanse as did the 1910 fire.

1825 - The Miramichi fire in Maine and New Brunswick; three million acres burned; 160 people killed.

1846 - The Yaquina fire in Oregon; 450,000 acres burned.

1853 - The Nestucca fire in Oregon; 320,000 acres burned.

1865 - The Silverton fire in Oregon, one million acres burned.

1868 - The Coos fire in Oregon; 300,000 acres burned.

1871 - The Peshtigo fire in Wisconsin; the most deadly in U.S. history; 1,500 killed; 1.2 million acres burned.

1876 - The Bighorn fire in Wyoming; 500,000 acres burned.

Parts of this chronology are taken from The Big Blowup

1881 -A Michigan forest fire destroyed a million acres of timber and killed 138 people.

1894 - The Hinckley fire in Minnesota; 160,000 acres burned; twelve towns wiped out; 418 lives lost.

1903 - The Adirondack fire in New York; 450,000 acres burned.

1910 - The great fire of 1910, Idaho and Montana; more than three million acres burned; 86 lives lost.

1918 - The Cloquet fire in Minnesota. Cloquet, a thriving sawmill town of 12,000 was gutted; timber land and property losses estimated at $30 million; 400 perished.

1932 - The Matilija Canyon fire in California's Santa Barbara National Forest; 256 square miles burned; 2,500 fire?fighters on the lines; no lives lost

1933 - The first of four Tillamook burns, in the Oregon coast range; subsequent fires burned in 1939, 1945 and 1951. In all, 355,000 acres of some of the finest timber in America were destroyed.

1947 - Texas; in September and October, 900 man?caused fires burned 55,000 acres of timber in eastern Texas; losses exceeded $ 1 million.

1947 - Maine; series of disastrous fires raged for ten days; 16 died; nearly 10,000 required first aid; 175,000 acres burned; Red Cross spent $2.4 million on disaster relief.

1988 - Yellowstone National Park, Montana and Wyoming; a fire that was being allowed to burn broke out of the park. In all, more than one million acres of national park, national forest and private forest land were burned.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[All Wet]

When I was in grade school in the early "50s" there were 160 million people in the U.S. Now there are over 300 million. We can't afford to let nature take its course if we are to support all those people and the ones yet to come. The figures tossed out for aboriginals in Oregon prior to the white man were about 40,000. That is all the hunter gathers that Oregon would support with the teaming rivers and game filled woods. Natural cycles swing from one extreme to the other. We manage big game to sustain fairly high yeilds and avoid the lows. The forest service attempts to do the same with timber. Unfortunately many timber companies follow economics; some being worse than others. Many people are using past practices to condem the loggers of today.

[WheresMyBobber]

It's probably too late to save this thread from it's original intent, which was the article that was first posted.

Did anybody else notice that

" scientists say its recovery is endangered and it may become extinct for completely natural reasons.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">was not elaborated upon?

Instead of writing about the "scientific" report they first mentioned, they completely left that information out of their "Fair and Balanced" article and chose to go with opinions from biased individuals/groups.

Anybody else notice this? What kind of responsible reporting is that - is it because we (the American people) are too consumed with headlines and drama to want the "rest of the story"?

[Drakeblake]

Down at OSU I heard second hand that if the barred owls take over they will just say "oh well" that is a species naturally being introducted. They have no reaseon to try and stop it, but they sure did try to stop the loggers from taking out the spotted owls habitat. Arn't humams natural?

-blake

[ 10-17-2003, 10:12 PM: Message edited by: drakeblake ]

[WheresMyBobber]

[ 10-17-2003, 11:37 PM: Message edited by: WheresMyBobber ]

[pdxkevin]

Further down in the article, their true goal is reveiled.....

More restrictions and bans regardless of the owls' plight!

Seems like the owls were just posterboys. It was amazing how quickly they were idsmissed and the pressure keeps getting turned up.

[freespool]

Don't worry there are plenty of creatures that depend on old growth forests. The spotted owl is just one of them.

[skein]

Didn't you know that all along in your gut? The word I heard - directly from one of the movers and shakers in that whole fiasco - was "we had to save those trees and the spotted owl was our last hope."

Remember the spotted owl that showed up on a lightpole in downtown Everett, Washington, and a biologist, when questioned about it, said, "we can only imagine that it was lost and looking for an old-growth forest." [img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img]

Oh well, loggers can be stopped, but nobody's figured out how to get a handle on forest fires, so those trees are gonna be harvested eventually, either by us or by Mother Nature. I'm pretty naive, but I still think "we" do a better job.

Skein

[WheresMyBobber]

Could you have expected anything different from THIS guy?

Notable Quotes:

"We want to destroy environmentalists by taking away their money and their members."

– Ron Arnold, The New York Times, December 19, 1991, "Fund Raisers Tap Anti- Environmentalism."


"We want you to be able to exploit the environment for private gain, absolutely... And we want people to understand that it is a noble goal."

– Ron Arnold, The Toronto Star, December 21, 1991. "A Grinch Who Loathes Green Groups."


"We are sick to death of environmentalism and so we will destroy it. We will not allow our right to own property and use nature's resources for the benefit of mankind to be stripped from us by a bunch of eco-facists."

– Ron Arnold, Boston Globe, January 13, 1992. "New, militant antienvironmentalists fight to return nature to a back seat."

"Facts don't really matter. In politics, perception is reality."

– Ron Arnold, Outside Magazine, December 1991.


Fair and Balanced.

[ 10-17-2003, 12:56 PM: Message edited by: WheresMyBobber ]

[El-Kabong]

Seems a bit rash to make any definitive statements (unless you want to get your name on Fox news)

can 20 years of trying to save remaining habitat save a species whose habitat has been decimated for hundreds of years?

Not to mention that the author Ron Arnold is and has been strongly linked to that noted environmentalist James Watts groups. His opinion on owls is not to be considered objective IMO. (Fox doesn't bother to mention this, fair and balanced, right!)

[ 10-17-2003, 01:13 PM: Message edited by: El-Kabong ]

[Straydog]

Oh well, loggers can be stopped, but nobody's figured out how to get a handle on forest fires, so those trees are gonna be harvested eventually, either by us or by Mother Nature.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">A good start for better handling or preventing the catastrophic fires is the better control of the loggers.

One would have to ask how there were any trees here before industrial logging began if one were to believe they all burn up if not logged.

The next step in controling fires is to spend less time, effort, money and human lives controling them.

We are soon to hear more and more about the cost/benefit of fighting fires and part of the discussion will be talk about the cost of human lives in regards to fire fighting.

How many dead firefighter's lives is putting out fires worth??

Fire has always been a part of the eco system and the faster we learn how to manage it rather than simply suppress it, the better off the forests, the fish and ultimatly, we, will be.

[ 10-17-2003, 12:59 PM: Message edited by: Straydog ]

[Straydog]

Frogpond,

Yes, there should some fire suppression as part of the managment of fire.

That is not to say the focus should be on putting it "out" neccesarily although you may want to put parts out while letting other parts burn. In other words, "manage" the fire.

Yes, you would want to "manage" the forests before fires. As I said, fuel loads and crowed stands are in dire need of managment.

Post fire management would mean treatment of the area in terms of possibly salvage, reseeding, erosion control, etc.

I do not and have not advocated a "hands off" approach to forest managment or fire. I advocate a different approach to the managment than we have taken in the past.

[ 10-19-2003, 08:46 PM: Message edited by: Straydog ]

[Swamp Puppy]

just a question for the anti-loggers here. i try to respect everyone's positions in matters and one way i try to do that is to understand a bit more about what that position actually is.

you say "stop logging" and "save the forests"...ok, i can see some logic in that. however, what do you propose using as a realistic alternative to using wood products in our lives?

now, IMHO we are capable of managing a resource, forests in this case, with a minimum ammount of impact. many animals thrive in open cuts and with replanting, most forests grow back quickly in relation to what it takes for them to grow back after a natural disaster of some sort.

again, i am not well versed in this issue..so maybe someone could help me out here.

[Straydog]

Mossberg,

I re-read all the posts and am having trouble finding who you refer to as "anti loggers".

I can't find them.

I noted we need more control of loggers, not end of loggers.

We have made progress in this regard but still have a ways to go, in my opinion. Granted, the cases of abuse are fewer, but they are out there just the same. I can show you one about a half mile down the hill from my house.

So, if you are really interested in an answer to your question, I guess first you need to find the people that are calling for an end to logging and ask them.

[freespool]

Mossberg,I can see how you might think that anyone concerned with the enviornment is anti logging. Given all the labeling and pigeon holeing that is done on this board. In my short time on ifish I have yet to see anyone advocating a ban on logging,on the contrary many have stated over and over that logging is necesary. The rub is how this logging is done and where it is done. A more responsible approach is needed to ashure fish habitat and a sustainable wood supply is achieved.

[Swamp Puppy]

fair enough...my bad. perhaps "anti" was too strong of a word to use in this case.

still, i look at some of the examples given of nature restoring itself after a natural disaster and then i look at areas that have been replanted by logging companies and i have to think that the human managed areas return to a habitat that is more suitable for wildlife than the areas that nature rebuilds. sure, it all comes back eventually, but 20 years later when nature is just starting to rebuild..the human managed resources are almost ready to be harvested and the cycle started over again.

the wildlife, in my limited exposer to this, doesn't seem to mind. so i just wondered what all the fuss was about? i agree that people just can't run around willy nilly and hack down every tree in sight, but then i don't think that is really the intention of the industry either.

[FrogPond]

SD-
Thank you for the well-written reply.

[Washington Hunter]

Mossberg, I wouldn't say that "human managed areas return to a habitat that is more suitable for wildlife than the areas that nature rebuilds."

Have you looked at any clearcuts recently? They are replanted with fir trees (usually) and then later sprayed with an herbicide to kill everything but the fir trees. What's left for wildlife to eat? Not much. Nature does a much better job. Burn a forest down and let it grow back naturally, then look at how many deer, elk and other wildlife will be in that area within a year or two. Heck just look at Yellowstone...best thing that ever happened for wildlife there was it burning up.