Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan said Thursday the northern spotted owl would be placed on the endangered species list next month, a move that could jeopardize 28,000 timbering jobs in the Pacific Northwest.
In informal remarks to about 100 regional department employees in Boston, Lujan said, "On June the 23rd, that owl is going to be declared endangered. When that happens, a lot of this timbering will have to shut down.""What do we do? It (the owl) is endangered, and I have to protect it," said Lujan, who expressed frustration over being hamstrung under the Endangered Species Act.
The act prohibits consideration of economic impact when deciding whether to protect an animal and bars the government from taking any action to protect affected industries until after endangered animals are placed on the list.
"I know I can do something about it later on, but by then the train wreck, so to speak, has occurred, and people are out of work," he said.
The small owls, which live primarly in old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, reproduce well only in the older trees, scientists say.
A U.S. Forest Service economic analysis released earlier this month predicted that setting aside 8 million acres to protect the owl could result in the loss of 28,000 jobs in the logging, lumber and paper industries by the year 2000.
According to the Forest Service, there are 949 known pairs and 1,743 estimated pairs of the spotted owl in northern California, Oregon, and Washington.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Portland, Ore., said Lujan's comments were premature.