White House Moves To Ease Logging Limits Protective `Circles’ Around Spotted Owl Nests Reduced In Private And State Forests

The Clinton administration on Tuesday delivered on a 19-month-old promise to Washington state’s timber industry to ease logging restrictions aimed at protecting the threatened northern spotted owl on state and private forests.

Assistant Interior Secretary George Frampton unveiled a proposed rule that he said would end almost all Endangered Species Act harvest limitations on 80 percent of the state’s non-federal forest land.

Frampton said protection on those lands can be reduced because the administration’s plan for federal forests, approved last year, curtails logging and increases habitat protection for owls and other wildlife.

He called it a “dividend for private landowners.”

The proposal was praised by Bill Jacobs, executive director of the Washington Forest Protection Association, which represents the state’s large timberland owners.

Jerry Greenberg, a spokesman for The Wilderness Society, said the administration “deserves credit in looking for creative solutions.

“We believe this shows the Endangered Species Act does have flexibility. However, we’re not sure this particular solution is going to work,” he said.

“If the rule is going to succeed, there’s got to be full funding of the Northwest forest plan and good faith implementation, the states have got to do the right thing on their land and the timber industry must continue to develop Habitat Conservation Plans with the Fish and Wildlife Service,” Greenberg said.

The proposed new rule, which does not apply to federal lands, would:

For most of the state, eliminate so-called “owl circles” that for nearly five years have limited logging on hundreds of thousands of acres of older forest around spotted-owl nests or “site centers.”

Require protection of just 70 acres of older forest around each owl or owl pair.

Retain owl circles in six large “special emphasis areas” deemed vital to getting the owl off the endangered-species list, but exempt small landowners inside those areas from most restrictions.

The owl circles date to 1990, when the spotted owl was listed.

The bird favors older forests. Federal biologists advised landowners they probably could avoid prosecution for harming or harassing the birds if at least 40 percent of the land in each owl’s “home range” remained unlogged.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service defined that home range as a circle covering 6,600 acres in the Cascades and 14,000 acres in the Olympics.

The legal status of the circles never has been clear. A number of landowners have ignored them, but only one has been taken to court. Many large landowners have followed the federal guidelines, however, fearing legal action.