The government would allow the threatened northern spotted owl to die off in parts of Washington state under a plan the Bush administration is considering as a way to protect logging jobs, a Senate aide said.
Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., is promoting the idea, and Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. is considering it as a way to keep timber-related job loss in the region from exceeding 30,000, said the aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity.The plan would protect the threatened bird throughout much of Oregon, Washington and northern California, the aide said Monday.
But it would allow it go extinct on the Olympic Peninsula and in the Cascade Mountains north and east of Seattle - two regions where its population is closest to being wiped out.
In addition, efforts would be made to trap owls found in those areas and transfer them to protected old-growth habitat in the Cascades south of Interstate 90, the aide said.
"The administration has drawn up its alternatives and we're optimistic it is going to happen," the aide said.
Such a move would require a special exemption from Congress because the Endangered Species Act mandates that threatened and endangered species be protected throughout their entire range.
Government scientists say saving the bird from extinction will require dramatic cutbacks in timber harvests, which grew excessively through the 1980s, destroying old-growth forest habitat.
Lujan estimates more than 30,000 Northwest jobs would be lost by the end of the decade if the owl were protected under a recovery plan in accordance with the act. That plan is to be made public by May 14.
Gorton is convinced that by writing the owl off in certain areas, enough logging would continue to save as many as 15,000 timber jobs that otherwise would be lost by protecting the bird under the act.
Lujan has appointed five assistant secretaries in the Agriculture and Interior departments to develop less costly alternatives, also to be made public by May 14.