GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Spotted owl experts don’t like the Obama administration’s plan for saving the threatened bird from extinction much better than the Bush administration’s plan.
Formal reviews by wildlife scientists, including some involved in a lawsuit challenging the Bush plan, have concluded that too much old growth forest habitat would still be open to logging under the latest plan.
They also complain the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not use the best available science — required by the Endangered Species Act — to create the draft plan.
The Bush administration created a spotted owl recovery plan in 2008 that made room for a major increase in logging on federal lands in the Northwest.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar withdrew that plan after deciding it could not stand up to legal challenges.
