Posted on 07/09/2007 8:47:15 AM PDT by Vinny
Environmentalists are quick to lecture the rest of us about the ways of nature. Don't clean the dead trees off the forest floor, it's natural. Cattle and horses on the range aren't native, so let the grizzlies and wolves devour them, it's natural. Man isn't part of the ecology, lock him out of vast areas of land, it's natural. It's interesting to note how the "natural" argument only applies when it is used to impose the radical environmental agenda. Case in point, the Northern Spotted Owl.
Spotted owls, we were told a decade ago, were disappearing because big bad timber companies were cutting down "old growth" forests. So the environmental movement rushed to the forests, hugged the trees and issued news releases to decry the evils of the logging industry. Save the owl. Save the trees. Kill the timber industry.
Of course, that was exactly the point. Kill the timber industry. As a result of the hysteria to save the "endangered" owls, U.S. timber sales were reduced by 80-90%, forcing saw mills to close, loggers to go broke and whole towns which depended on the industry to literally disappear. The federal crackdown on the industry caused a shift in U.S. domestic lumber supplies to foreign soils. In short, American industry suffered in the name of protecting the spotted owl. Turns out it wasn't true.
A decade and thousands of broken dreams later, comes this report from the federal government on the real reasons for the spotted owl's endangerment: "Oops."
According to a new government draft plan to save the species, scientists are no longer saying the greatest threat to the Spotted Owl is logging activity. "The draft recovery plan recognizes the primary threat to northern spotted owls as competition with barred owls." According to the report, barred owls are less selective about the habitat they use and the prey they feed upon and are out-competing northern spotted owls for habitat and food, causing its decline.
In fact, for the entire decade since the issue emerged on the political scene, the property rights and land use movements have been reporting the fact that the spotted owl is only a sub-species of Mexican spotted owls, which are not endangered at all. Some experts will say the only way to tell the difference between the two is by their accents. (OK, I'm kidding, but this ridiculous story needs some humor). It was no secret that the spotted owl didn't need "old growth forests" to survive, since spotted owls were found living under bridges and in McDonalds signs. What it needed was a good food source like any other species. Now we know it was undercut by another owl – a completely natural occurrence.
What was accomplished during the ten-year fight besides the destruction of an entire industry? The establishment of a very radical and dangerous political agenda called the environmental movement. Its power is now so great that no politician dares to oppose them. Yet, that power, we now know for certain, was built on a lie. Some in the movement have even candidly admitted that if they didn't have the spotted owl they would have invented something like it to drive their agenda. In fact they did invent it and the purpose was to destroy the timber industry and private property rights. They called it an environmental emergency.
Now the truth has come out. So, will the same federal government which rushed to impose harsh treatment of innocent property owners and industry now roll back those stifling regulations and let freedom breath? Of course not. Agendas are agendas, regardless of the facts.
So instead, after the nation spent millions of dollars to destroy an industry's private property rights, still, the government plans to spend $200 million more on a "barred owl removal plan" in order to save the spotted owl.
And as usual, when a new government debacle is rolled out, there is always an emergency to drive the policy. Now, according to Ren Loheofener, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Pacific Region, "Because the range and numbers of barred owls are expanding rapidly, our effectiveness in addressing this threat depends on immediate action . . ."
Here's an immediate action sane folks could recommend: Let the barred owls alone to do what comes natural to them. If the Spotted Owl can't keep up – then good riddance. It's been used to cause enough pain and obviously its time is up. It's a natural process. Species come and go. We've got plenty of Mexican spotted owls to play with if we get homesick for them.
Of course, the final chapter is yet to be written. Soon, if the new "recovery plan" is successful, it won't be long before the environmental movement has a new emergency – man's wanton destruction of the barred owl. Creating false environmental disasters just comes natural for some people.
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Tom DeWeese is publisher and editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, VA.
No, just those from the left.
So instead, after the nation spent millions of dollars to destroy an industry's private property rights, still, the government plans to spend $200 million more on a "barred owl removal plan" in order to save the spotted owl.
Hmm. Wrecking the economy and killing off American owls to save Mexican immigrant owls? Sounds like a plan.
You are being discussed, thought I’d better ping you.
Similar to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” where she blamed DDT for killing off the eagles. Turned out her data was faked and there was no link between DDT and the demise of eagles. In her case the subsequent global ban on DDT caused millions of people to needlessly die of malaria.
oh yeah, where?
The didn’t mention that the “Northern” spotted owl is genetically identical to the common Soutwestern or Mexican spotted owl.
I lived out on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State from 1990 to 2004, and saw this destruction of towns happen. The interesting thing is that the locals often voted Rat, just because their own rep was a ‘good old boy’ who went hunting and fishing, too. They didn’t connect that sending Rat representatives to Olympia was empowering the radicals from Seattle.
I am sad, disappointed and dismayed that this article, otherwise excellent, omits the most important effect of all on people. Particularly people in previously robust timber-producing states:
The quintupling of lumber prices that resulted from all the closed timber harvesting and sawmills.
The consumer got the royal shaft, in addition to the tens of $millions wasted addressing a non-problem.
Traveling west towards the coast, along Shelter Cove Road, from Garberville reveals timber growing so close together as to be choking the life out of everything. Even as a non-timber expert, I can recognize that that is not a good thing.
A shafting of the consumer and bigger forest fires seem to be the only results of the stupidity of allowing the dimmest among us, dedicated to illegal substances, to make public policy.
Even better, we now IMPORT lumber when we have plenty of it. Now the liberals complain about “jobs” and “trade deficit” problems that THEY frickin’ caused.
But just think of all the new jobs that have been created trying to extinguish forest fires!
...this is going to make my head explode...who really cares if the owls flying around their woods are spotted or barred?!?
You mean you can't tell the difference between this barred owl, spotted owl and mexican spotted owl? Funny, I can't either.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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