Word: owl
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Dale Page has been a cutter of trees, as was his father before him. He may have cleared as much of the ancient Northwest forest as any man. This day he is clear-cutting a three-acre patch of old growth. The area is designated as a possible spotted-owl habitat, but Page has never seen one of the birds. He stands among rhododendron, sword ferns and buckbrush, his body testimony to the perils of his work. The pitch of his chain saw screaming at 13,000 r.p.m. has left him hard of hearing, an upended log cost him part...
...earth. When the cloud of detritus and needles settles, the ancient forest of the Pacific Northwest has retreated one more step. Tree by tree, acre by acre, it falls, and with it vanishes the habitat of innumerable creatures. None among these creatures is more vulnerable than the northern spotted owl, a bird so docile it will descend from the safety of its lofty bough to take a mouse from the hand...
...futures of the owl and the ancient forest it inhabits have become entwined in a common struggle for survival. Man's appetite for timber threatens to consume much of the Pacific Northwest's remaining wilderness, an ecological frontier whose deep shadows and jagged profile are all that remain of the land as it was before the impact of man. But rescuing the owl and the timeless forest may mean barring the logging industry from many tracts of virgin timberland, and that would deliver a jarring economic blow to scores of timber-dependent communities across Washington, Oregon and Northern California...
This week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to announce whether it will list the northern spotted owl as a threatened species. If the owl is listed, as many predict, the Government will be required by the Endangered Species Act to protect the bird. And if a preservation plan advocated by biologists is put into effect, it could be one of the most sweeping environmental actions ever undertaken. Federal and state agencies say the plan, fully carried out, would set aside an additional 3 million acres of forests. That would slash by more than one-third timber production...
...knowing they cannot wait for the millions of seedlings and young trees to mature. If the industry is allowed to keep cutting, some forestry experts say, the last ancient forests outside wilderness areas could fall within 30 years. Thus many mills may be forced to close no matter what. Owl or no owl, the timber industry faces a painful conversion from its dependence on giant old-growth trunks to smaller trees in reforested stands...