Who gives a hoot? Americans debate changing the Endangered Species Act.

They're really not very large as owls go--about the size of feathery footballs. And hardly anyone has ever seen them. They live at the tops of trees in remote forests and only come out at night. But just mentioning the name of the northern spotted owl in Oregon and Washington state today could get you in the middle of a very rough argument. Many people in those states blame federal protection of the owl for lost jobs.

For as long as anyone can remember, northern spotted owls have nested in the tall trees of old-growth (more than 100 years old) forests in western Washington and Oregon. But logging--the cutting down of trees to make lumber and other wood products--in these forests over the last 50 years has drastically shrunk the owl's habitat, or natural home. Today, about 2,000 of the owls remain, down from an estimated 50,000 in 1890.

An Endangered Species 

By 1990, the northern spotted owl population had dwindled so much that the federal government declared it an endangered species. This declaration automatically placed the owl under the protection of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Passed in 1973, the ESA is a landmark law that prohibits all activities that could harm an endangered plant or animal until a plan can be worked out to save the species. When the northern spotted owl was put on the endangered list, the law made it illegal to kill the owl. It also made it illegal to intentionally destroy the owl's habitat--old growth forests in Washington and Oregon.

Feds Stop Logging

As a first step, the federal government halted logging on the millions of acres of federally-owned forest land in Washington and Oregon. Many small independent loggers were immediately thrown out of work.

Less hurt were the big logging companies, which do their logging on millions of acres of privately owned forests. But soon these companies, too, were hurt because courts also suspended logging on much of their lands.

The Endangered Species Act is not just designed to protect individual animal and plant species. It also aims to maintain the whole ecosystem (interdependent system of living things) in which the endangered plant or animal species plays an important role.

If one species in such an ecosystem dies out as a result of human action, say scientists, it could trigger a kind of chain reaction, endangering other species dependent on it, and eventually harming humans themselves.

In the case of the northern spotted owl, many loggers feel that the government cares more about helping the owl than about helping humans. When logging was halted, loggers lost their jobs. This, in turn, caused people whose jobs depended on loggers--restaurant workers, car dealers, grocery store workers, and others--to lose work.

Many people in the logging and lumbering communities of Washington and Oregon feel as if they have now become as endangered as the northern spotted owl, and the government doesn't care.

Anger has spilled out against the owl itself. People wear T-shirts with sayings such as "I love spotted owls--fried!" and drive cars sporting bumper stickers saying "If it's hootin', I'm shootin'."

One logger, who had worked for 30 years in the woods, spoke for thousands when he told a reporter: "I have no food, no home, and no income now--all because of a bird. I've been cheated!"

Environmentalists Speak Out

"Wait a minute," answer enviromentalists. "We've all been cheated."

Environmentalists blame bad logging practices for destroying the forests, causing both the endangerment of the owl and the loss of jobs. They say that the region had been losing jobs gradually long before the decision to stop logging to protect the northern spotted owl.

"Logging in U.S. forests has gone on far too long and on too large a scale," says scientist Larry Franklin.

Franklin points out that the Northwest once had 19 million acres of old-growth forest. But today 2 million acres remain--the rest taken down by logging. If such logging continues, says Franklin, forests, owls, and people will all suffer equally.

Other Cases

The conflict between people and federal laws protecting endangered species is not confined to the case of the northern spotted owl:

* In Idaho, the government's 1993 decision to put the Bruneau hotspring snail on the endangered species list has resulted in a similar outcry. This tiny snail (about the size of a BB) lives only in the hot underground water near the Bruneau river. Farmers in the region also use this water to irrigate their crops. But because the water--the snail's natural habitat--is dwindling, the ESA limits how much water farmers can use for irrigation. Angry farmers claim that their farms are being ruined by the government's protection of the snail. Environmentalists charge that the farmers themselves, by their overuse of the water, have both endangered the snail and limited the water supply.

* In northern California and Oregon the government has formally proposed putting the coho salmon on the list of threatened species. (Threatened is a category not as severe as endangered.) If approved after a year's review, this would prohibit people from fishing for coho salmon in protected areas. It would also limit boating, logging, and lumbering along 700 miles of coastline and along rivers up to 100 miles inland. Critics believe the government's decision could put thousands of people out of work.

* In the U.S. Southwest, federal protection of the endangered ocelot, a wild cat that once roamed the area around the U.S.-Mexico border in the thousands, has held up the development of a power plant and several proposed bridges across the Rio Grande river.

* In Hawaii, protecting the endangered Hawaiian monk seal have added extra costs for fishing boat operators.

Congress Looks To Change Low

The uproar over the Endangered Species Act has reached the halls of Congress. Lawmakers in both houses of Congress are looking at ways to change the ESA to make it less damaging to local businesses and jobs.

The House of Representatives voted in July to put no new species on the endangered species list for twelve months. In the Senate, Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) has introduced a bill (proposed law) that limits the Endangered Species Act to banning only the outright killing of endangered animals and plants.

Gorton's proposed change would also force the federal government to consider the impact on people and communities when it decides how far to go to protect a species. Factors such as job loss and the cost of attempting to save a species would have to be considered.

Gorton says that his reform makes "people equal partners with [officials] who make decisions about their future.... The bill restores balance to the ESA.

Many environmental groups oppose Gorton's proposed changes as "taking the guts out of the Endangered Species Act" and giving businesses freedom to destroy the environment.

"Under Gorton's plan, you could not shoot an eagle, but you could ax its nesting tree," complains an editorial in the Tampa Tribune.

Supporters of wildlife, while they oppose Gorton's changes, believe that the ESA must be changed.

"It has created enemies of wildlife," says Ike Sugg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Sugg and others tell stories of landowners who have bulldozed their forests because they feared that their land would become the home of an endangered animal.

A Clinton Veto?

The Clinton administration agrees that some changes must be made in the ESA to take landowner rights into consideration, but it considers the Gorton bill as going too far. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said he would recommend that President Clinton veto (refuse to sign) the bill.

The Administration has pledged to work with Gorton and other critics in the Senate and House to work out a compromise change in the ESA that both allows reasonable development of land and also protects the habitats of threatened species, saving both jobs and endangered species.

Supporters and critics alike of the Endangered Species Act know there is still huge support in the country for government action to save threatened and endangered animals and plants. A recent Abc/Washington Post poll found that 70 percent of Americans still believe that the government has not done enough to protect the environment.

RELATED ARTICLE: Bald Eagle

This noble bird, the symbol of the nation, was once placed on the list of endangered species in all states except Alaska. But it has made a major comeback, and could soon be taken off the list. The comeback of the bald Eagle is often used to defend the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act.