Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl - DRAFT

Coastal Oregon Productivity Enhancement (COPE) Program is a cooperativeresearch effort among several groups, including the Forest Service's PacificNorthwest Experiment Station and the College of Forestry at Oregon StateUniversity. Among the goals of the COPE program are conducting large-scaleoperational testing of forest management strategies, developing methods toassess the effect of various riparian and reforestation management systems onwater, timber, and wildlife, and making scientific information more accessibleto forest managers in the region. The COPE program currently has proposalsto study several nontraditional silvicultural methods for simultaneouslyproducing timber and wildlife values.Oregon State University's College of Forestry's research forest is being usedby a group of researchers to conduct a study entitled New PerspectivesforManagement of Timber and Mature-Forest Wildlife in Douglas-fir Forests. Researchersare examining different silvicultural systems that might enableforesters to manipulate stands to produce the kind of habitat needed byinterior-forest species like the spotted owl.7. State of WashingtonExisting programs in Washington contributing to or having the potential tocontribute to owl conservation include forest practices and land use regulations,management of state-owned lands, land acquisition, research, andvarious landowner assistance or incentive programs. In the past 2 years,considerable efforts have been made that have benefitted spotted owls throughadministration of forest practices regulations and cooperative planning forcertain state-owned lands.Regulatory ProgramsState Forest Practices Act and Regulations. The Forest Practices Act andits implementing regulations are intended to afford protection to forest soils,fisheries, wildlife, water quantity and quality, air quality, recreation, and scenicbeauty, coincident with maintenance of a viable forest products industry. Theregulations, administered by the regulatory branch of the Department ofNatural Resources, apply to 12 million acres of state and private land.Timber harvest, road construction, and chemical spray on "lands known tocontain a breeding pair or the nest or breeding grounds" of a federally listedspecies, or within the federally designated critical habitat of such species aresubject to review under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). "Landsknown to contain" currently is interpreted to include all occupied suitablehabitat subject to federal prohibitions on taking.SEPA review entails information gathering, including owl surveys, and findingsas to significant adverse environmental impacts. Surveying protocols andinterpretation of results are provided by the Washington Department of Wildlife,which also maintains a data base documenting locations of all known owlsites in Washington.Substantive forest practice permit decisions under SEPA require a balancebetween avoiding or mitigating identified adverse impacts and maintaining aviable forest products industry. Therefore, while state permit decisions currentlyreflect the biological thinking that was embodied in take guidelinesadopted by the FWS, decisions may diverge from those guidelines in somerespects. Nevertheless, state permittees are not relieved of any responsibilities86