California Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis)

Threats

The California spotted owl is closely associated with old forests and according to studies, old-growth forests in the Sierra Nevada have declined by as much as 90 percent. Such habitat loss is believed to be a factor in the poor survival of adult California spotted owls, which were found by a Forest Service study to be dying at a faster rate than the listed Northern spotted owl. The owl population trend in the northern Sierra Nevada is currently in decline and measures taken by Federal land managers over the last decade have failed to show marked improvement in its status. The mature forest stands favored by the owl are generally at lower risk of crown fire than younger forests, because the dense, older forest canopies maintain relatively moist conditions within the stand. Also, the large trees favored by the owl for nesting and foraging do not generally contribute greatly to wildfire risk.

Habitat

California spotted owl inhabits the Sierra Nevada from approximately 3,000 to 7,000 feet in elevation. Ninety-nine percent of the total known owl sites on Forest Service land occur within the seven west-slope national forests, from the Plumas to the Sequoia. The forests that once provided habitat for the owl have been decimated by over a century of logging, road-building and development.

Conservation

The 2001 Sierra Nevada Framework Plan paid particular attention to the spotted owl decline by crafting a set of standards to protect its habitat. The Forest Service’s 2004 revisions to the Framework eliminated key protection measures for medium and large trees, canopy cover, home-range core areas and weakened protections near nests. The original Framework provided protection for the owl, while at the same time allowing for substantial progress towards reducing risk of destructive forest fires, by protecting fire resistant medium and large trees across the landscape, and focusing fuel treatments around communities where they are needed most. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s original decision (In 2003, see below) not to list the owl under the Endangered Species Act was based on the assumption that the owl’s habitat in the Sierra Nevada would be largely protected by the Clinton Administration’s Sierra Nevada Framework, a plan that restricted logging to protect the owl’s habitat. Once the Bush Administration’s revisions of the Sierra Nevada Framework were adopted in 2004, which promised to triple logging in the Sierra Nevada, the Fish and Wildlife again denied endangered status to the owl while the threats to the owls survival had increased dramatically thanks to the watering down of the original Framework and its protections.

Status

The Sierra Campaign and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition to list the California Spotted Owl under the Endangered Species Act in April 2000. In 2003 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied that listing stating that it was warranted but that they were precluded from listing the owl due to administrative restraints. A second petition to list was filed in 2004 after the revisions to the Sierra Nevada Framework were adopted and the Fish and Wildlife Service once again denied listing based upon a “warranted but precluded” finding. The California Spotted owl is consider a “sensitive” species by the Forest Service though this status has done little to stop projects and plans which greatly impact the habitat of the owl and its survivability in the Sierra Nevada.