USFWS: Owls should be listed as endangered
Listing will change once service deals with other priorities
A 12-month review of the northern spotted owl has found listing the species as endangered is warranted, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must deal with a backlog of species listings before it can change the owl’s listing.
The service issued a 12-month review Monday that stated reclassifying the northern spotted owl from threatened status to endangered was warranted because the owl has experienced a significant rate of decline since it was listed as threatened in 1990, particularly from barred owls and high-severity wildfires. The species has declined by 70% since the early 1990s, the review states.
The threats “are of such imminence, intensity, and magnitude to indicate that the northern spotted owl is now in danger of extinction throughout all of its range,” the decision states. “Our status review indicates that the northern spotted owl meets the definition of an endangered species.”
However, the rev iew states the service cannot yet work on reclassifying the northern spotted owl because it must focus on listings that have “statutory, court- ordered or court-approved deadlines and final listing determinations.”
The service doesn’t have the resources to add the owl to the endangered species list yet because Congress placed a spending cap on work related to listing species as endangered, the review states. That work has also grown in size and cost for more than two decades, it states.
“Proposed rules for reclassification of threatened species status to endangered species status are generally lower in priority because, as listed species, they are already afforded the protections of the (Endangered Species Act of 1973) and implementing regulations,” the 12-month review states. “However, for efficiency reasons, we may choose to work on a proposed rule to reclassify a species to endangered species status if we can combine this with higher-priority work.”
The review states that the owl’s threatened listing already confers it with protections that wouldn’t be significantly expanded through uplisting it to endangered.
However, wildlife advocates issued a press release stating that the service is endangering the owl while acknowledging it needs protection.
“In August 2020, the Service settled a timber industry lawsuit by proposing to eliminate more than 200,000 acres of northern spotted owl critical habitat,” Susan Jane Brown, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, said in a statement. “Before January 20, 2021, the Service will make a decision that may diminish designated northern spotted owl critical habitat on a scale that dwarfs the aforementioned reduction proposal.”
The 25-page 12-month review was likely not produced in response to environmental groups suing the service last week to get the service to meet statutory deadlines for reviewing the owl’s listing, said Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, which initially filed to have the owl uplisted in 2012.
“This is something the agency had in its pocket,” Wheeler said. “It’s disappointing that we have to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to get them to do their job. This reflects a lot of the problems with the northern spotted owl, which is bureaucratic delay and inaction have caused the species to get to this place where we have to sue to get them listed as endangered.”