Interesting article from the Smithsonian Magazine on Northern Spotted Owls. They are being displaced, but not by man, primarily by Barred Owls, a competitor. This raises an interesting conundrum about what we should do about it.
But the Barred Owl invasion is being caused by man. Barred owls do better in the more open forest that is created by massive clearcutting, while Spotted Owls prefer closed canopy old growth. Others say the move west by Barred Owls was due to fire suppression which opened up more forests for them. Yet others say that it’s simply a natural range expansion.
The timber industry is in court litigating now, saying the Spotted Owl decline was caused by Barred Owls and not logging. But it was caused by both, and the logging may have created the more open conditions favored by the Barred Owl. Anyway, returning to massive logging will just reduce spotted owls even further. It’s not a solution.
It’s clear to me that Northern Spotted Owls qualify for uplisting from Threatened to Endangered. The USFWS has been deliberately starved for funds for decades now, first by Republican Bill Clinton, then by Republican George Bush and now by Republican Barack Obama. Barack Obama has a worse record on endangered species even than George Bush’s father, George Bush Sr.
Incidentally, the California Spotted Owl lives in this region, though I have never seen one. It desperately needs to be listed as at least Threatened, but it’s never going to happen, especially under Republican Barack Obama.
The Mexican Spotted Owl lives in the Southwest. It has been listed as Threatened. If I am not mistaken, it is continuing to decline.
DNC Democrats, the mainstream Dems since 1990, are characterized by a savage, vicious hatred for all environmental issues. They are corporate, rightwing Democrats. Bill Clinton was a nightmare on all things environmental, and Obama has been catastrophically worse than Clinton. I don’t understand Obama and why he’s so disastrous on the environment. If Obama is an environmentalist, he will lose to Republicans?
I don’t get it. During the latest wild budget slashing, the USFWS has been cut to the bone worse than ever, after 20 years of endless slashing by rightwing Democrats and rightwing Republicans. What is this “government’s too big” shit anyway? The state at all sorts of levels is seriously underfunded, if anything.
As an environmentalist, why should I support all this insane budget slashing shit? The budget slashing has been going on for 30 years now under rightwing Democrats and Republicans. One of the goals of it is to gut the state’s environmental protection ability. That’s part of the “government is too big” shit. Big Government protects the environment, and White shitheads don’t like that.
This really indicates to me that White Americans are the worst threat to the US environment of any people. White Americans have always been characterized by extreme hatred for the natural world and lust to destroy everything and kill every living thing, all to make a buck, because White Americans are greedheads who care only about money.
There was a brief period from about 1964-1980 when White Americans for some reason became environmentalists. Whites created the environmental movement and pushed through all of our great environmental legislation. Now they’ve turned their backs on all that and it’s just back to kill and destroy.
In fairness, I must say that all 3rd World non-Whites are totally disastrous on the environment too. Destroy everything, kill everything, that’s been the human motto from Day One. To some extent, hunter-gatherers are the exception, but once agriculture steps up, it’s kill kill kill destroy destroy destroy. Hunter-gatherers at least need to allow enough living things out there so they can eat and survive. Agriculturalists don’t.
Really, White Americans are backwards, reactionary, savage, primitive, uncivilized type people, similar to the barbarians of the 3rd World. They shame any proud White man.
The White man should be Civilized Man, guardian of nature.
As you might have guessed, I am an extreme environmentalist, almost an Earth First type. I support tree spiking, the whole nine yards.
More on spotted owls here.