Suit to protect spotted owl filed

VICTORIA, B.C. – A coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday aimed at preventing the spotted owl’s extinction in British Columbia. The number of animals is now estimated at six remaining breeding pairs.

“If the spotted owl goes extinct, it will be the first vertebrate species in British Columbia’s history that will have gone extinct as a result of logging,” said Ken Wu, a Western Canada Wilderness Committee spokesman.

A lawyer for the groups said the suit filed in federal court is the first of its kind in Canada under the Species at Risk Act.

The environmental groups want the federal government to step in and use the act to prevent the loss of the spotted owl because, they argue, the provincial government hasn’t taken adequate action.

The British Columbia government called the lawsuit frivolous and accused the environmental groups of grandstanding while the province works to find ways to save the owls without completely banning logging in their old-growth forest habitat.

“We take our commitment towards creating the most sustainable environment anywhere in the world very seriously,” said Pat Bell, British Columbia’s agriculture and lands minister.

“I just find it very unfortunate that a few isolated organizations decide to utilize this opportunity to grandstand,” Bell said. “They know the efforts that this government has put into the protection of species at risk.”

Wu said the lawsuit is serious.

“It’s not grandstanding,” he said. “The extinction of a species from a province is a very important concern, and the B.C. liberal government will have it all over their hands.”

The environmental groups involved in the legal challenge – which include the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, the David Suzuki Foundation and Forest Ethics – think the suit would benefit all wildlife in every province and territory if they are successful.

The environmental groups said they cannot sit on their hands while the government permits logging in spotted owl habitat in forests near Vancouver.

The Seattle Audubon Society has launched a similar lawsuit in the United States. There are about 6,100 spotted owls left in the northwestern U.S.

A spokesman for Environment Canada could not immediately be reached for comment.

British Columbia government biologists reported that they had found 23 owls in the province this year.

Environment Minister Barry Penner said recently that some logging in old-growth forests might benefit the spotted owls because it opens their hunting territory.

Bell said the government has set aside 1,400 square miles of forest in the Squamish-Lillooet area northeast of Vancouver as a spotted owl protected area, although some logging is permitted.

The Western Canada Wilderness Committee has previously predicted that the owl would be extinct in British Columbia by 2010. About 100 spotted owls lived in British Columbia in 1993.

In 2004, the environmental groups had asked then-environment minister David Anderson to step in with an emergency order under the Species at Risk Act to protect the owl.

The legislation bans the killing or harassing of species listed under the act and sets out procedures for the protection of their critical habitat.

The law, passed in June 2003, applies to species under federal jurisdiction, including marine and migratory species and terrestrial species on federally controlled lands.