Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl - DRAFT

Limited Habitat. Spotted owl habitat is expected to occur in about 79 percentof the townships in the province. There are slightly more than 2 millionacres of forestlands in this province where timber production is the mainmanagement goal.There is a long history of habitat alteration in coastal redwood forests. Thereare approximately 1.95 million acres of redwood forestland, of which a verylarge portion (probably more than 75 percent) was historically in an old-growthcondition. There are approximately 85,000 acres of old-growth redwood forestremaining today, 21,000 acres of which are in private ownership. The vastmajority of known owls is in well-developed second-growth, usually older than50 years. There are approximately 740,000 acres of larger second-growthredwood forest in the province. Most of this forest is commercially availableand is being harvested by a variety of methods reflecting the managementphilosophies of landowners. The currently suitable owl habitat in the redwoodtimber type appears to be high quality, and most neighboring pairs are notwidely separated.Douglas-fir and Douglas-fir/hardwood forests predominate in the timberedland inland from the redwood belt. This area occupies roughly a quarter of theprovince with the remaining portion being brush and oak/brush lands. Thesegenerally unsuitable lands for owls are interspersed with, and in some areasnaturally fragment, the more suitable Douglas-fir and Douglas-fir/hardwoodforests. There are no commercially available old-growth Douglas-fir or Douglas-fir/hardwoodforests in the province, but harvest occurs in the secondgrowthDouglas-fir types.Declining Habitat. Redwoods are limited geographically to the coastal portionof this province. The wood is in relatively high demand, and available oldgrowthis rare. Harvest on private lands in the north coast accelerated duringthe 1980s. From 1986 through 1989, the average annual acreage cut in thisarea was 102,029 acres. Approximately 83,000 of those acres, or about 4percent of the timber producing lands, were treated annually with standreplacementharvests. Protected second-growth habitat within RedwoodNational Park will provide additional habitat as these stands mature.Distribution of Habitat and Populations. Owls and owl habitat generallyare abundant and widespread across the northern and western portions of theprovince where redwood and coastal Douglas-fir habitats predominate. Owldensities average 3.6 known owl sites per township where suitable owl habitatis expected to occur.In some areas of the province, owl habitat is distributed naturally in an irregularpattern. A north-to-south band from southeastern Humboldt County tocentral Mendocino County contains a natural mix of Douglas-fir forest incanyons, hardwood forest on slopes, and grasslands on ridges. This area isrelatively unsurveyed, but the distribution of owls and their habitat is notcontinuous. Similar conditions, without the Douglas-fir forests, continuesouth through Lake County. One-third of the townships in this area is notexpected to contain suitable owl habitat. On average, one known owl siteoccurs in those townships that are expected to contain suitable habitat.Owl populations in Marin County, and Napa and Sonoma Counties (21 and 27sites respectively) are isolated. Naturally occurring grasslands and hardwood/brush areas separate these owl populations from the continuous range of thesubspecies that occurs to the north and northwest. The Napa and SonomaCounty owls are 16 to 20 miles from the main body of the population inwestern Sonoma County and 32 miles from owls in the southern part of theKlamath province in Lake County. The Marin County population is at least 1759