New Study Of Spotted
Owl Is Goal Of Bill

WASHINGTON — Northern spotted owls, the creatures that rallied environmental activists, led to major Northwest logging cutbacks, and drove the price of lumber sky-high and the quality of lumber into the sewer, deserve a new, detailed scientific study to determine exactly what's happening to them. So said a former top government official last week.

The research may show the government could allow more logging and recreation in some lands covered by the Northwest Forest Plan, the 1994 Clinton administration document that protects most old-growth federal forests in the Pacific Northwest as habitat for the spotted owl, Cy Jamison said.

Jamison headed the Bureau of Land Management in the Bush administration from 1989 to 1992.

He said the study may call for staying the course with the forest plan or making changes, but that there could be no harm in looking.

The plan has had a ``tremendous impact, and we should ensure that the course that was originally chosen is still the best course,'' Jamison told a House Resources Committee panel.

Jamison testified before the forests and forest health subcommittee in support of a bill introduced Monday by the panel's chairwoman, Helen Chenoweth-Hage of Idaho.

The idea for the study came from Jamison, a Montanan and a lobbyist, whose clients include an Oregon timber company and Oregon and California counties who are covered by the forest plan.

He wants the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences to review all available scientific data on issues such as the spotted owl's population and habitat, and the suitability of plans for the owl's recovery.

He said recent studies of the owl, which was listed as threatened in 1990, have brought new evidence that otherwise might not be considered by federal land managers.

The Clinton administration has not had time to take a position on the newly introduced bill. But Paul Brouha, associate deputy chief at the Forest Service, said his preliminary reaction is that such a study would be ``quite beneficial.''

But one environmental activist dismissed the proposed $250,000 study as a fishing expedition with the aim of boosting logging in the region.

``The spotted owl is the most studied endangered species in history,'' said Any Stahl of the Eugene, Ore., group Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

``I can't imagine that another quarter of a million dollars will add much,'' he said.

No further action has been scheduled on the Chenowth-Hage bill.