Is there science to back up this claim?
According to one of the standard ecology textbooks, Charles Kreb's "Ecology", a survey by Bart & Forsman (1992) revealed that the owls were not found in forests which were only 50 - 80 years old and occurred only where old-growth stands were present. Landscapes containing less than 20% old-growth forest rarely supported the species. They also found that much of the protected wilderness of the Pacific Northwest didn't support owls either as these forests were less productive because they occur at higher elevations than much of the old-growth outside of the parks. LaHaye & Gutierrez (1999) found that spotted owls in northern California nested in trees older than 300 years and more than 1.2m in diameter over 80% of the time.
Here's the references for those who want to examine the data:
Krebs C.J.(2001) Ecology: the experimental analysis of distribution and adundance. 5th Ed.
Bart & Forsman (1992) dependence of northern spotted owls on old-growth forest in the western USA. Biological Conservation 62: 95 - 100
LaHaye & Gutierrez (1999)Nest sites and nesting habitat of the northern spotted owl in northern California. Condor: 101: 324 - 330
The point of this article is that any scientific survey done in the era of political correctness is suspect.
Have you got some scientific paper from pre-1982 that you could cite to back up your possibly correct claim?