Washington - Spotted Owl Numbers In Freefall

[hatrack]

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"Scientists knew it would take decades to reverse the owl's plight in Washington, Oregon and northern California. But the latest owl population studies on the Olympic Peninsula and in the Central Cascade Mountains show owl numbers down 50 percent to 60 percent over the past 10 years.

'There has been a precipitous decline in the owl population in areas of Washington state, including the Olympic Peninsula and Cle Elum study areas,' said Martin Raphael, chief research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station in Olympia. 'There's no place the owl population is doing worse than in Washington state,' said Dave Werntz, science director for the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, a nonprofit wildlands advocacy group. 'We could lose the owl in its northern range. It's teetering on the brink.'

On the Olympic Peninsula, severe winter storms in 1998-99 apparently wiped out a number of the owls. In the following two years, almost none of the owls had chicks, according to research led by Oregon State University biologist Eric Forsman, whose work since the 1970s makes him the owl expert of the Northwest. The studies Forsman led in 2002 showed that 38 percent of the 92 owl territories surveyed on the Olympic Peninsula supported owl pairs -- about half as many as were occupied from 1987 to 1992.

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The barred owl, a relative newcomer to the forests of the Northwest, also appears to be raising havoc with the spotted owl. Its habitat has long ranged from Florida to Canada in the East, but the birds have been spreading westward, and are now found throughout the north, including Washington state. The owls compete for the same habitat as the spotted owl, eat some of the same critters -- flying squirrels and wood rats -- and might actually be killing spotted owls."

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From the Olympian

[ClintonTyree]

1. Check the gas grill........................

at Bush's ranch in Crawford. He'd be the type.