Owls enter dispute over old-growth logging
Vancouver Island MP says bird sighting means forest practice should end
VANCOUVER—Royann Petrell didn’t care about the owl attacking her laptop right before her eyes not far from where high drama over the future of Vancouver Island’s old growth forests is taking place.
Its swooping, diving and hooting mean it was in her campsite near a bridge in the Caycuse area where logging activities are happening amid protests. Now Petrell hopes the presence of the birds — which she says are protected screech owls — could stop the logging operations.
“If any logging trucks were to pass over that bridge, they would probably have to be disturbing the nest,” she said.
A local MP agrees and has now asked Ottawa to get involved in the dispute. The subspecies of kennicottii western screech owls, found on Vancouver Island but usually around its edges, are listed as threatened by the federal government and blue-listed as a species of special concern by British Columbia.
Green MP for Nanaimo-Ladysmith, Paul Manly, said the federal government can order a halt to logging in defence of the owls under the Species At Risk Act. But Ottawa says these particular owls are out of its jurisdiction.
Petrell said she made five recordings of western screech owls near Fairy Creek and Caycuse and is now trying to record them at Eden Grove; three contested portions of Vancouver Island where protesters have been facing off with loggers after setting up camps and blockades last summer.
The area is located more than 100 kilometres northwest of Victoria. Not far from the Pacific Ocean, it’s carpeted with lush valleys and majestic mountainsides that are home to giant trees able to reach heights of more than 70 metres with 12 metre circumferences.
Petrell, an associate professor emerita of chemical and biological engineering at the University of B.C., said the owls depend on these monster trees for their habitat.
She is just one of many concerned about forests and wildlife on Vancouver Island.
Protesters say the ancient oldgrowth forests consisting of massive cedar, spruce, Douglas fir and other tree species is dwindling and being mismanaged by the provincial government.
But Teal-Jones, the logging company with the rights to harvest the disputed areas, insists its plans are mischaracterized and only a small area will be logged. The B.C. NDP government, meanwhile, has said it will not be issuing a moratorium on old-growth logging.
An avid birder, Petrell said she first heard the owls on a camping trip and returned with recording equipment. She placed her laptop on her car to play recorded screech owl hooting sounds to provoke a response from those around her campsite near the Caycuse bridge. She said it worked.
“It flew up and put out its talons and tried to come down with its talons full-on to the screen of the computer,” she said, reasoning the owl thought it was fighting off a rival competing for the affections of a nearby female. “It was very interesting and very exciting.”
Petrell soon sent her findings to Manly.
On Tuesday Manly sent a letter to federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson asking the federal government to intervene on the basis of Petrell’s recordings of the owls.
“The minister could have an emergency order to stop logging until they confirm about these owls,” Manly said in an interview with the Star. “You don’t see them on the south coast of Vancouver Island and they live in old growth trees.”
His letter slams the provincial government and says there is no social license to cut down old growth and “people are not having it.”
It argues the presence of any western screech owls as a reason for Ottawa to become involved, urging Wilkinson to reach out to Indigenous leadership and the province to find a proposal to protect the trees.
Wilkinson’s press secretary, Moira Kelly, said the federal government is monitoring the situation. But, Kelly said, it is up to the province to protect threatened animals on “non federal” lands, “as is the case in Fairy Creek and Cuycuse.”
B.C.’s Ministry of Forest said it is aware of four sightings of the owls in the South Island District and has been in contact with Teal-Jones about best practices and regulatory requirements for the species, the nests of which are protected.
The ministry added it is working to clarify the locations of the sightings, saying it doesn’t appear imminent harvest plans exist for the area.
The situation on the southern half of the island has intensified recently after months of blockades. The RCMP have started to arrest protesters to enforce an April 1 court injunction.
Earlier this week seven protesters were arrested at Fairy Creek. Media reports late Wednesday said a journalist was arrested in the area and the number of arrests is now 12.
Protesters were buoyed last week by news of a report from the Forest Practices Board, an independent watchdog, criticizing practices by BC Timber Sales in the Nahmint watershed south of Port Alberni. The government agency is in charge of logging licenses in the province.
The board’s report, sparked by a complaint from the environmental group Ancient Forest Alliance, found the BC Timber Sales was not following best management practices for coastal legacy trees and may be harvesting in rare ecosystems among other criticisms.
The report recommends the agency not sell any licenses in areas with “high-risk” ecosystems until the province determines how much forest to retain.
The ministry of forests said it is addressing the board’s recommendations.
The NDP government has been roundly criticized as dragging its feet on implementing changes to its forest practices following a strategic review last year.
The protest activity has drawn comparisons to the “war in the woods,” a series of anti-logging protests on Vancouver Island in the 1990s peaking with the arrest of more than 900 protesters in Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of the island. The protests managed to halt clear cutting in the area.