Spotted owl (Caurina subspecies) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 11
Existing Protection or Other Status Designations
International conventions and agreements
Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994
Not protected by this act.
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
All owl species are listed as Appendix 2 under CITES.
Federal and provincial legislation
Species at Risk Act
The Northern Spotted Owl is designated as Endangered and is on Schedule 1 of the Canadian Species at Risk Act (SARA). In 2001, the Northern Spotted Owl was assessed to be Canada’s highest priority species for recovery by RENEW (Chutter 2004).
British Columbia Wildlife Act
The Northern Spotted Owl and its eggs, active nests, and young receive protection from killing, disturbance, and possession via Section 34 of the British Columbia Wildlife Act.
Spotted Owl Management Plan (SOMP)
The history of Northern Spotted Owl management in British Columbia began in 1985 when the first inventories were conducted. A Spotted Owl Recovery Team (SORT) was established in 1990 and an interim conservation strategy was prepared in 1993. SORT’s option report was released in 1994 (Dunbar and Blackburn 1994) and a provincial socio-economic impact assessment report followed in 1995. In 1995, the British Columbia government chose one option from the 1994 report and created the Spotted Owl Management Inter-agency Team to develop a SOMP for the Squamish and Chilliwack Forest Districts. In 1997, the SOMP was released as Cabinet Policy (SOMIT 1997a,b).
The SOMP option chosen by the BC government (which was not endorsed by SORT) predicted a 50% chance of stabilizing Northern Spotted Owl populations in British Columbia after a continued short-term decline. It is obvious this plan has failed to meet its objectives as the Canadian population heads rapidly towards extirpation.
For comparison purposes, in the USA, development of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was motivated by concerns about the overharvest of late-seral forests and the effects of intensive forest management on the long-term viability of the Northern Spotted Owl. Implemented in 1994, a decade later it remains unclear whether the enactment of the NWFP has improved the conservation status of Spotted Owls. The cause of the decline is difficult to determine because the research needed to establish cause and effect relations has not been done (Noon and Blakesley 2006).
BC Species At Risk Coordinating Office
In April 2006, the BC government announced a 5-year plan to initiate measures to rebuild populations. The plan includes captive breeding and release, moving Spotted Owls to new locations, increasing food sources for Spotted Owls, and managing competing species such as Barred Owls (Chutter et al. 2007). The plan also aims to evaluate and revise existing Spotted Owl management areas to ensure they better protect owls. This will be a collaborative effort between the ministries of Environment and Forests and Range, the federal government, First Nations and forest licensees. Options for protection will be very limited if the plan is constrained by a no-net-loss-to- timber-revenue. The province also commits to consultation with Environment Canada to provide an appropriate amount of habitat protection in areas where the 2005 survey reported Spotted Owls, ignoring areas where owls have been found in other years.
Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Strategy
A recovery strategy prepared by the CSORT (Chutter et al. 2004) is now posted on the SARA public registry. This strategy points out thatconservation involves many challenges because of a complexity of biological, political, social, and economic factors.
Old Growth Management Areas
Through an Old Growth Order, British Columbia established provincial old growth objectives to maintain biodiversity values. Old growth retention targets are set for each biogeoclimatic zone and variant within a landscape unit. The primary intent of Old Growth Management Areas (OGMAs) is to represent different ecosystem types but provincial policy is to overlap OGMAs with habitat for species at risk, including Northern Spotted Owl, wherever possible (Chutter et al. 2007).
The Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA)
The FRPA contains a number of provisions that contribute to managing Northern Spotted Owl habitat. These include Section 5 (which provides for wildlife biodiversity in forest stewardship plans) and Section 7 (which provides for Species At Risk). For example, recently, seven areas (22,480 ha) have been captured as LTACs through a Section 7 Notice under the Forest and Range Practices Act (Chutter et al. 2007). Section 7 notices are limited, however, because they are intended to conserve wildlife habitat without unduly reducing the supply of timber from British Columbia’s forests. Management of all species at risk is limited to an impact cap of 1% of mature forest by forest district (Chutter et al. 2007).
Identified Wildlife Management Strategy
The Northern Spotted Owl is designated as an Identified Wildlife in British Columbia with special habitat protection measures under the BC Forest and Range Practices Act (Blackburn and Godwin 2004). Under the IWMS, nine Wildlife Habitat Areas have been established on provincial Crown forest and/or range land, most of them previously designated as LTACs. Wildlife Habitat Areas of sufficient size and quality have the potential to protect owl territories (Chutter et al. 2004). There is a no-net-loss provision in establishing WHAs, i.e. for every hectare designated as a WHA, a hectare is removed from elsewhere in the SOMP boundaries.
Other potential legislative tools (Forests Act, Environment and Land Use Act, and provisions for Forest Certification) (Chutter et al. 2007) have very limited utility for conserving Northern Spotted Owls.
Status designations
National and sub-national designations
The Northern Spotted Owl was designated as Threatened in the USA under the US Endangered Species Act in 1990. In Canada, COSEWIC assessed the Northern Spotted Owl as Endangered in 1986 based on the first status report on Northern Spotted Owl (Campbell and Campbell 1984). This status was reconfirmed in 1999 (Kirk 1999) and 2000.
The Northern Spotted Owl is Red-listed (since 1989) in British Columbia (CDC 2007).
Page details
- Date modified: