FILE — In this May 8, 2003 file photo, a northern spotted owl sits on a tree in the Deschutes National Forest near Camp Sherman, Ore.
An agreement filed in U.S. District Court Monday will provide opportunities for the public to comment on a review of areas deemed critical habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl in Washington, Oregon and California, according to a news release from the American Forest Resource Council.
“Our coalition supports science-based solutions to recovering the Northern Spotted Owl and mitigating threats to its population,” Lewis County Commissioner Gary Stamper said about the agreement in a statement. “Addressing threats such as the invasive Barred Owl and stand-replacing wildfires that have devastated occupied habitat will be critical. We believe this agreement will help to restore the social and economic balances in our local communities that they so desperately need.”
The agreement still needs to be approved by the U.S. Supreme Court. The process was set in motion by a unanimous 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision finding that the Endangered Species Act does not allow the government to designate lands as critical habitat unless it is actually habitat for an endangered species, and ruled that courts can review government evaluations regarding the impact caused by designating habitat as critical, according to the American Forest Resource Council.
The ruling came after a coalition of counties, businesses and labor groups, which included Lewis County, sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after it designated 9.5 million acres of land in 2012 as critical habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl.
“The coalitions legal action focused on the inclusion of millions of acres of forests not occupied by the species, including over 1.1 million acres of federal lands designated for active forest management activities and where no owls are present,” a news release from the American Forest Resource Council states.
The coalition argued the 2012 designation violated the Endangered Species Act because it didn’t take into account negative effects of the action.
The agreement filed Monday represents a commitment from U.S. Fish and Wildlife to review the critical habitat designations with input from the public.
