Red Lodge Clearinghouse

According to a peer-review panel's findings in August, the draft recovery plan selectively cited scientific reports and data in order to justify its proposal to reduce protection for old-growth forests and emphasize the threat of the barred owl to the spotted owl.

The plan was prepared in response to a court settlement with the American Forest Resource Council. The northern spotted owl was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, fueling the debate over logging old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, but no recovery plan was ever finalized (Land Letter, Aug. 16).

Sustainable Ecosystems Institute Vice President Steven Courtney will lead the review, Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Joan Jewett said. The panel will hold a two-day public hearing in January and will work through mid-February, she said. FWS wants to issue a final recovery plan for the owl by April.

"It's a good-faith effort to establish an independent record of the best available science," Jewett said. "It will be open and transparent" (Learn/Milstein, Portland Oregonian, Dec. 18).

An October letter from 22 House lawmakers demanded immediate withdrawal of the plan. "It is inappropriate to move forward with related land-management decisions until a new recovery plan can be drafted that is based on the best available science and additional scientific peer review is conducted," the lawmakers wrote.

FWS has said it will revisit eight species decisions made or affected by former political appointee Julie MacDonald, but the agency did not include the spotted owl in that list (Land Letter, Oct. 4).