SCB, AOU, and TWS peer reviewers find draft Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan improved but incomplete
The Northern Spotted Owl, which inhabit forests of the US Pacific states, was listed in 1990 as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) due to declining population trends related to the loss of older coniferous forest habitat to timber harvest. Although the Northwest Forest Plan of 1994 was effectively a habitat management strategy for the owl, the subspecies has lacked a formal recovery plan. A recovery plan produced by the Fish and Widlife Service in 2008 was judged scientifically inadequate by reviewers from three scientific societies (SCB, AOU, and TWS). The FWS recently released a draft of a revised plan, and asked the same scientific societies to evaluate whether it now passed muster in terms of its use of ‘best available science’. The recently completed reviews from SCB/AOU and TWS found the new draft plan improved in many aspects from the 2008 version. However, the reviewers found the plan was still inadequate in several major aspects. In particular, both reviews noted that the draft plan was released for public review before completion of the habitat modeling that would be used to design the network of habitat reserves. The SCB/AOU review states “by releasing a draft plan for review before major elements of the habitat and viability analyses were completed, the USFWS effectively precluded detailed peer review of the analyses.” Similarly, TWS felt it “was asked to review a recovery plan that is incomplete, which precluded comprehensive review.” Both reviews called for the FWS to offer another opportunity for peer review once the science underlying the plan is completed.
The SCB/AOU peer review can be found here.
The TWS peer review can be found here.
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