How we can still save Canada’s last spotted owls

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Jordan Heath Rawlings There are various levels of endangered when it comes to animals and as our climate changes, and we head towards more extinctions and less diversity. It can sometimes become routine to hear of a species bouncing between them or one species that is threatened while another is critically endangered. Or that this one has been moved from endangered back to just vulnerable. And then maybe if we’re lucky, back to threatened, again. But there are all these levels to endangered and then there is the state of the spotted owl in Canada. That state is one. There is one wild born spotted owl left, and there are two more that were raised in captivity and have since been released to the wild. And unless you are looking in a zoo or an aviary, that’s it.

So, three in all of Canada, how did it come to that? In a word, money. The riches made from harvesting the old growth forest in British Columbia that is the owl’s habitat. A better question though, is how can we stop it, or even reverse it? That answer? Is more complicated, but not without hope. It involves a back and forth between federal and provincial governments, strategic release of animals from captivity to the wild. Protection of what remains of that forest, and maybe eventually, one by one, one of the west coast’s most majestic creatures will once again take to the treetops. I am Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is the big story. Sarah Cox is the BC investigative reporter for The Narwhal. She has been following the saga of the last remaining spotted owls. Hello, Sarah.

Sarah Cox Hello. Good morning.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Thanks for joining us today.

Sarah Cox Oh, it’s my pleasure.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I wanna start by just asking you. About the animal we’re going to discuss today. So what is the spotted owl? What are they like? I gather you’ve met some.

Sarah Cox I have met some, although only in captivity. So the spotted owl, it has dark chocolate coloring with its namesake, creamy white spots. They’re smaller than a chicken. Their eyes are a rich coffee brown, which is unlike the eyes of most other owl species, which are typically yellow. And spotted Owl has have been in the limelight on and off for decades as efforts to protect it clash with plans to log the old growth forest, that the owl requires to survive.

Jordan Heath Rawlings And so you mentioned you’ve met yours in captivity. How many are there in captivity or in the wild? Which I gather is a very low number.

Sarah Cox It’s a very low number in the wild in Canada. So historically there were approximately a thousand spotted owls in the Canadian Wild, only found in British Columbia. And there are also spotted owls in Washington and Oregon and northern California states. But in Canada, We only have three spotted owls left in the wild, and two of those spotted owls were actually born in captivity and released last summer into the wild. So really, we’re down to one wild born spotted owl in Canada. There are also about 30 owls in captivity at at a breeding centre in Langley, British Columbia, and that’s where I saw spotted owls. I’ve obviously never seen them in the wild, but I was able to visit the breeding centre a few years ago, and the owls are kept in very spacious outdoor aviaries. Their eggs are hatched in a laboratory in incubators. Because they were running into all kinds of problems with the eggs not hatching in the nest boxes or the females eating the eggs. So now they’re more owls in captivity, in Canada than in the wild.

Jordan Heath Rawlings You mentioned that, you know, there’s been a long on and off history of trying to protect them. What has the government done to try to protect them and how long has this been going on for?

Sarah Cox So the saga of the spotted owl has gone on for decades and it really reached a height in the 1990s, especially in the United States, where there were court cases to try to protect the habitat and really the logging community clashed with environmentalists over this. There were actually in American mill towns, there was mock spotted owl soup and mock pickled spotted owl eggs on menus and stores. Sold t-shirts and bumper stickers with the slogan, “Save a logger, eat an owl.”

Jordan Heath Rawlings Wow.

Sarah Cox Jack Munro, who was the Canadian president of the International Woodworkers Union representing loggers once said to the New York Times. I tell my guys if they see a spotted owl to shoot it. So this, this little creature has become very synonymous with the ongoing destruction of old growth forest and as old growth forests in British Columbia in the spotted owls habitat, in the southwestern corner of the province have vanished. The spotted owl has two. And over the last couple of decades, despite many efforts to get the federal government to step in and and save the owl, we are in a situation where, again, the, the wild born population has dwindled to just one owl and there’s two captive born spotted owls that have been released into the wild.

Jordan Heath Rawlings And that kind of brings us to the recent history of trying to protect these creatures that you’ve been covering for The Narwhal. So maybe start last year, when the federal government finally made a move to really protect these things and, and the environment minister was pretty fired up. Can you give us a sort of the lowdown on what happened there and then we’ll move on to how it has or hasn’t been implemented?

Sarah Cox Sure. So actually, this latest chapter starts in 2020 when the environmental law charity Eco Justice, representing the Environmental Group Wilderness Committee, petitioned the federal government to step in and issue an emergency order to protect spotted owls and their habitat. And under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, federal cabinet can step in and take over some provincial responsibilities if it is deemed that, a species is in imminent danger. And so, Eco Justice petitioned the federal cabinet asking them to do this, pointing out the plight of the spotted owl in British Columbia, pointing out that, the identification of critical habitat and a recovery strategy was more than a decade overdue. And then that kind of, lit a fire under the BC government and there were negotiations between the BC government and the federal government. And a plan was announced.

Fast forward another year or so, basically nothing had really happened except that logging had been deferred in two valleys where there were three wild born spotted owls left. And then Eco Justice once again petitioned the government. Asking them to step in and this time around minister federal environment, minister Steven Guilbeault said that he would recommend that a cabinet issue, an emergency order to protect the spotted owl. So that is basically the last that we’ve heard from the federal government. I don’t believe that recommendation has gone to cabinet yet, for consideration. In the meantime, there are no doubt some very intense negotiations going on behind the scenes between the BC and federal governments over this. And of course, the provinces absolutely never want the federal government to step in. And this is only happened in fact twice before in the history of Canada’s species at risk doc.

Jordan Heath Rawlings When the federal government looks at a petition like this and they look at the land that would need to be protected, who gets to make the call on that? Is that the minister’s office? Is that a panel that recommends it? Does it have to go to the province first for an agreement? I’m trying to get a sense of what the process is and what the carve out process is, because I guess we’re gonna talk about that in a minute.

Sarah Cox Yeah, so basically the Federal Species at Risk Act applies automatically only to federal land, which is about 1% of BC. So land use decisions are the purview of the provincial government. So it is, unless the federal government were to step in with this emergency order, it is entirely up to the British Columbia government to decide whether or not old growth forests will be logged and whether or not all growth forest in spotted owl habitat will be logged. So it is a provincial decision, but what we’ve seen over the decades is that every time the provincial government has opted to proceed with logging in spotted owl habitat. And that has been mapped for almost two decades now by wilderness committee. The BC government insists that it has set aside enough habitat to maintain 125 spotted owl pears, nesting pears. Groups like Eco Justice and wilderness committees, and also independent biologists say, well, that’s not enough, and you all you have to do is look at the spotted owl’s demise to say that clearly not enough habitat has been set aside. And it’s further complicated by the fact that in some wildlife habitat areas that have been officially set aside for the spotted owl, logging is allowed in parts of them, and some of them have already been logged in part. And that, of course does not give the spotted owl the place to shelter, to nest, to raise its young, to find food that, that it needs to survive. So, it’s really falling through the cracks along with many other species and especially old growth dependent species.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Listen, it’s a shame that it’s come to this, but we’re talking about three owls right now. What do they represent, in terms of the bigger picture, for the environment in BC and the balance of logging interests with environmental concerns?

Sarah Cox So the Spotted Owl has very much become synonymous with the destruction of old growth forests in British Columbia. And so they also are what’s known as an umbrella species, meaning that if spotted owls are secure in an old growth forest, if their populations are secure, then many other species in that forest will also be secure. So they really symbolize the loss of old growth forests and the lack of a balance between logging and conservation. And we’re in this situation today where there’s so few owls left because there hasn’t been a balance. Many people are, are pointing this out, that if we did have a balance, we would have both a logging industry, a responsible logging industry, and we would also have old growth forests and the species that rely on them.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Is that a realistic goal? And I ask this because I also wanted to question you about the attitudes of the logging industry. I presume, and maybe I shouldn’t assume, but I presume we’ve come a long way from save a job, eat an owl, and that kind of disdain towards endangered species. But is it possible to both sustain the industry and protect enough territory to make the spotted Owl viable again?

Sarah Cox Biologists and conservationists say that, yes, if we decide that we want to have the spotted owl in Canada in the wild, that it is still possible to protect enough of their critical habitat. Meaning the habitat that they need for their survival and recovery. It is possible through the captive breeding program to have spotted owl releases. It may be possible to introduce some spotted owls from the United States where the species is by no means out of danger, but there are approximately 4,000 of them in the United States compared to three in the wild in Canada. That all of this is possible, but that we need to make some tough decisions. And those tough decisions may be absolutely no more clear cutting in habitat that federal scientists have deemed necessary for the spotted owl’s recovery and survival. And so what has happened, and what I’ve written about recently is that the critical habitat for the spotted Owl was finally mapped by federal scientists using the best science available, and then negotiations with the British Columbia government happened. And that somehow during those negotiations, almost half of that critical habitat was erased from from maps.

And so instead of being critical habitat, which is a defined term under Canada’s Species At Risk Act, it was put into this brand new category called, potential Future Critical Habitat, and the BC government was given up to 60 years to figure out whether that habitat would be moved over into critical habitat, triggering some protections under the Species At Risk Act. And in the meantime, the BC government has continued to issue and consider clear cutting approvals in this area of critical habitat that was mapped by federal scientists. So people are saying, you can’t have it always here. Either we decide, yes, this spotted owl and many other species for that matter, are important to us both just for their intrinsic value, but also because Canada has national and international obligations to protect species and to recover species. And that in that case we need to use the science, the best science that we have available and to set aside these areas for the owl and to work on reintroducing it. So this is really the time of tough decisions.

Jordan Heath Rawlings What needs to happen right now, for that to take a step forward? The ball is in the federal government’s court, I guess. They have to just simply put it to the house and get it through.

Sarah Cox Yeah. So earlier this year in January, an amended recovery strategy for the spotted owl was released, and it had not the maps that the federal scientists drew, but the maps of critical habitat that ensued following the negotiations with the BC government. And that strategy was open to public comment until, March 27th. And the federal government has said that it will consider all comment and then make a final decision about where the critical habitat will be mapped. So that’s where things stand right now. They didn’t wanna say anything else at the time, just that they will be considering all comment. And of course, groups like Eco Justice and Wilderness Committee are watching these developments very, very closely.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Last question, and you kind of alluded to it a little while ago, but if this carve out is made and the habitat is protected, how hard is it going to be to reintroduce and regrow the spotted owl population? You know, you mentioned there’s a whole bunch of them at the aviary and we can bring some in from the United States, but when you look at just three out there, it seems like a pretty monumental task to someone who knows nothing about the process.

Sarah Cox It is a monumental task and we have put ourselves in this situation by letting things go for far too long. T hen again, you can look at other species like the California condor, some caribou populations for that matter. And look at a situation where there were very, very few individuals left and yet recovery is in action. Or the Vancouver Island marmot for that matter and where, inch by inch, like literally animal by animal species are, I wouldn’t say yet that they are in recovery, but they are heading in that direction. So it just depends at this point in time, how much money we’re going to spend, how much effort we’re gonna put, and making that trade off between industrial logging and protecting some old growth forests. What I’ve heard from scientists is that it is possible.

It’s not gonna be easy at this point in time. It’s certainly not gonna be cheap. The centre is managing to hatch spotted owls in incubators. They’re kept in the lab and in a hatching room until they’re about 10 days old, and then they’re given either back to the biological parents or to foster parents. Last year was the first time that owls from the centre were released into the wild. It was very experimental. They were released with little GPS backpacks to track them. They were kept in outdoor aviaries in the area where they were gonna be released, for a number of days before their release. This is the first time anywhere that this has happened, and so it is a big experiment. One of the three owls that was released was later found injured and returned to captivity. As far as I know, the other two are still out there. They were proving very capable of catching their own prey after being fed euthanized mice and rats at the breeding centre and we’re learning as we go. But again there are many examples of species that have been on the brink of extinction or extirpation, which is local extinction, and which through monumental efforts are being brought back.

Jordan Heath Rawlings And I guess the next few months are critical. It’s fair to say?

Sarah Cox Yes, I think so. We’ll see what happens with that federal recovery strategy. We’ll see if federal cabinet actually considers this emergency order. We’ll see if the BC government continues to approve clear cutting in spotted owl habitat that federal scientist said was essential for its survival and recovery. And much is up in the air right now and the next few months will be very decisive. I think.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Thanks for walking us through this today.

Sarah Cox Oh, you’re very welcome. My pleasure.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Sarah Cox, BC Investigative Reporter at The Narwhal. That was the big story. If you want more, you can find it at our website thebigstorypodcast.ca. You can also, of course, just scroll down in whatever podcast player you’re looking in. You can talk to us on Twitter @thebigstoryfpn or via email hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Joseph Fish is the Lead Producer of the Big Story. Ebyan Abdigir and Robyn Simon also produce the show. Robin Edgar handled our sound design this week. Saman Dara is our new researcher on this show. Stef Phillips is the Showrunner at Frequency Podcast Network. And I am your Host and Executive Producer, Jordan Heath Rawlings. Thanks for listening. We’ve got a few treats in store for you this weekend, and we’ll be back with a fresh big story on Monday.