Spotted Owl (Draft)

It was in 1983 when a small group of local activists allied themselves with some out-of-state members of the environmental group “Earth First” to protect (in some cases with confrontational actions) the Forest Service’s building of a highly controversial logging road into the heart of a large road-less block of old growth forest. The action taken by these environmentalists was for this unprotected area to gain protected wilderness status in the future.
The environmentalist’s attempts to protect the old growth forest from the forest products industry were not successful in the beginning. It was not until the environmentalists seized the potential value of the spotted owl as an endangered species (Post, Lawrence and Weber 1999). They presented their case in 1986 to the Department of the Interior, by listing the spotted owl as an endangered species; however, this petition was refused when first submitted. In 1990, the department made the decision to reverse its position an...