Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl - DRAFT

nesting territories in the three states are within the range of the northernspotted owl. There are 130, 76, and six known communal roosts in Washington,Oregon, and California, respectively. More than 95 percent of the communalroosts also are within the range of the owl in Washington and California,whereas less than 10 percent of the roosts in Oregon are within the range ofthe owl.Natural history and habitat associations.-The bald eagle is the only memberof the fish-eating eagle group in North America. It is free ranging for muchof its life except in southern or coastal areas where eagles form resident breedingpopulations throughout the year. The bald eagle forages over waterthroughout most of its range and for most parts of the year, so its prey isderived from nonforested habitats. Prey consists primarily of fish during thebreeding season and waterfowl or carrion during the winter (Stalmaster 1987).However, eagles nest and roost communally in forested habitats throughouttheir geographic range. Selection of areas for nesting and communal roostingis predominantly in coniferous forests that contain some component of olderforests, and these areas are considered essential habitat features for thespecies (Keister and Anthony 1983, Anthony and Isaacs 1989). The PacificStates Bald Eagle Recovery Plan (USDI 1986) recognizes the importance ofnesting and roosting areas, and it is important to manage these two habitatsproperly, because timber harvest can have an adverse impact on them.Present threats to bald eagle populations include illegal shooting, pesticides,human disturbance of foraging and nesting areas, and habitat destruction.The effects of pesticides have decreased since the banning of DDT, but there isstill low reproductive success of breeding pairs on the lower Columbia River,which is associated with high levels of DDE and PCBs (Garrett et al. 1987).The increase in human populations and amount of leisure time for recreationhas resulted in an increase in human-eagle interactions, and human disturbancehas been reported to have effects on nesting (Anthony and Isaacs 1989)and foraging populations (McGarigal et al. 1991, Stalmaster 1987:161). Thisthreat may become more important over time. Habitat destruction is a problemprimarily on nonfederal lands where only nest trees and small, surroundingstands of trees are reserved from logging. These nest trees and stands arehighly vulnerable to windthrow and other natural mortality.Northern Goshawk (Accipitergentilis)Distribution.-The northern goshawk inhabits coniferous and deciduousforests in temperate and subarctic regions of the northern hemisphere. InNorth America, goshawks are known to breed as far south as the AppalachianMountains in the Southeast and throughout the Rocky Mountains into Mexico.In the western United States, the species nests as far south as the SierraNevada Mountains of California and the Kaibab Plateau of northern Arizona(Reynolds 1989). The goshawk is an uncommon resident in California. Nestinggoshawks have been recorded as far south as Tulare County in the SierraNevada, and in the Coast Range to Mendocino County (Grinnell and Miller1944). Summer sightings of goshawks near Mt. Pinos and in the San JacintoMountains suggest that isolated breeding populations may have persisted upto the 1970s.In Oregon, nesting goshawks have been located in the Cascade, Klamath,Ochoco, and Blue Mountains, and smaller ranges in eastern Oregon. Althoughgoshawks are not known to nest in the central or northern portions of theOregon Coast Range, nests have been located in the Siskiyou Mountains insouthwestern Oregon (Marshall 1991). Goshawks breed in all of Washington'sforested montane areas, including the Olympic Peninsula, the entire Cascade384