Bush admin. calls for cutting spotted owl habitat

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: AP

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - The Bush administration proposes cutting 1.5 million acres from Northwest forests considered critical to the survival of the northern spotted owl. The move could reopen the 1990s debate over timber production on public lands, in which logging companies argued that efforts to save the owl contributed to the Northwest timber industry's decline.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed Tuesday to reduce the critical habitat for the owl from 6.9 million acres of federal lands by 22 percent, to 5.4 million acres.

"One of the most upsetting things about this proposal is that the spotted owl wars of the '90s had simmered down quite a bit, and a kind of balance had been reached regarding logging and old growth forests," said Kieran Suckling, policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group in Tucson, Ariz. The new proposal "sets the stage for reopening those wounds," he said.

The Bush administration's efforts to boost Northwest timber production have been stymied by court rulings, including several that tossed out plans to log in critical owl habitat.


Read more: http://www.komotv.com/news/7974897.html

[Demeter]

1. Bunch of Bullies! Taking Frustrations Out on Harmless, Defenseless Birds!

[Acadia Blue]

6. Oh, they respect life remember? (sarcasm) Only the unborn have

a place in the murderous heart of shrubery.

[StarryNite]

24. Exactly!

That's just what I was thinking.

[aquart]

2. Why? Were they disloyal?

[EFerrari]

4. Remember that story about the Taliban eating the zoo?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

3. Why doesn't he go ahead and eat a baby on the White House steps

and get it over with. :mad:

[Lorien]

9. Or wrap a baby in an American flag, set it on fire in Times Square, THEN

eat it. The MSM and Bushbots would still hail such a thing as a "bold move" that proves his leadership abilities. :eyes:

[bdamomma]

5. * just does not give a shit for anything.

well, only his selfish greed and oil.

[Oreegone]

7. Everything habitat

The Bush administration is the rape, rob and plunder administration. Anything to make the rich richer. Unfortunately it is not just Spotted Owl habitat. Little of our original forest remains in the pacific northwest. Which means known and unknown species are disappearing at an alarming rate.

This is also what helps bring and keep water and humidity here. Our rainforest is almost gone, so less water, more fires, less habitat for wildlife. If you ever have an interest in the difference between new and old forest or concrete vs. lawn on the environment an old technical book explains it quite well with scientific data. It is called "The climate near the ground". You can get it on Amazon. Well worth the read.

[focusfan]

8. what a son of a bitch

he just wants to destroy everything and anything.i hate him

[Gato Moteado]

12. bush is just a puppet for the timber industry......

....he happens to be the repuke rubber stamper in the WH. any other repuke would be the same. a puppet.

you hate him? he's a dipshit, worth none of the respect or energy you expend on him. what about the timber industry that has bought and paid its way into the government? aiming all your hatred at chimpy is exactly what these industries want. it's why they have puppets....chimpy does what he's told to do by advisers and industry execs and everyone else that has paid for him and he takes the heat. i'm not saying he doesn't deserve it. he's a willing puppet. but i haven't seen a post in this thread that actually attacks the people responsible for cutting down trees to steal the lumber off of our public lands.

are we letting the loggers off? why aren't there millions of people surrounding the public lands forbidding the loggers to enter? when the wacky anti-choicers gather, they surround abortion clinics and don't let the cars pass. their ideology is warped, sure, but they go out and fight for their beliefs. we just sit on our asses and talk about the GOTV campaign we helped out once or how we sent $20 to kucinich in 2004.

whatever happened to the days of spiking trees and people standing up to the loggers? calling bush an asshole is getting old. he's a douchebag puppet and we've pointed that out ad nauseum here. it doesn't seem to help. maybe it's time for a change of strategy.

[Double T]

10. It is easy for bush; he has no conscience or morals.

Another living breathing creature will be driven to extinction.

[Gato Moteado]

13. who cares about bush? he's a puppet......

....what about the lumber industry that's actually doing the destruction?

[Double T]

14. Enabled by bushco.

[Gato Moteado]

15. the lumber industry has been destroying old growth forest since way before....

...bushco.

[Double T]

19. Understood. bushco has NOW allowed them to do it again.........

when it had been stopped.

[Gato Moteado]

23. ok, so then how do we correct the problem?

we already know buchco (and really the whole repuke party) has been bought and sold by big industry. bush is the front man, yet he's the guy in the organization with the smallest intellect and probably the least amount of power. he's the empty suit they stick out in front to absorb all the attacks. big industry has bought its way into the government by buying the repuke party. big business calls all the shots. chimpy just gets to pretend he's in charge.

so by flinging insults at the retarded chimp and ignoring the bigger problem, how will that solve anything? we're doing exactly what big biz wants us to do; namely, ignore the real problem and focus our energy on the clown in front that really is out of the loop.

the 2008 election is way in front of us still. GOTV or cheerleading for obama or hillary or sending money to edwards or arguing how kucinich is the only true progressive probably won't save any ancient trees in our public old growth forests. lobbing insults and name calling the retarded chimp in the whitehouse will save the same amount of trees; zero.

when the looney anti-choice people react to stuff they go out and form human circles around abortion clinics. when the progressive left responds to obscene destruction of the planet we get on the internet and type messages that say "bush has no conscience or morals....he won't be happy until he makes all the species of the world extinct". wow. we showed 'em. i got news for you....bush isn't making the decisions. the timber industry (and the arms industry, oil industry, pharmaceuticals, chemical industries, etc) own the white house and most of the congress. bush couldn't tell the difference between a spotted owl and a canadian goose. there's no ideology behind the decision to cut down trees...it's pure economics. people want money....there are resources on public lands they can sell....the industry lobbies the gov't...the people in the community that need jobs vote and appeal to their local lawmakers...and the trees get cut.

the pirates here are the lumber companies. they're going to rape your public lands while you sit around and call bush a murderous emperor, giving him all sorts of respect he doesn't deserve. where are the millions of pissed off people standing up to protect the forests from the environmental rapists?

i don't think we really care all that much. we just want to complain and blame somebody for all the problems and the retarded chimp is an easy target. and that's exactly how the corporations want it.

[whoneedstickets]

11. Opening Wounds... is the primary GOP political strategy

Polarization is their main electoral tactic.

[noel adamson]

16. This after they have succeeded in classifying forest defenders as terrorists

officially in the process of sentencing ELF members recently. http://fe24.news.sp1.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20070605/pl_usnw/animal_liberation_front_and_earth_liberation_front_members_sentenced_in_oregon_for_acts_of_eco_terrorism_in_five_western_states

Meanwhile real terrorists are, of course, free to go about their business.

[Mrs. Overall]

17. That's a great point--labeling environmentalists who protest large industry practices as eco-

terrorists. If I were to chain myself to an old growth tree that was about to be cut, I would receive a heavy sentence. But if I bombed an abortion clinic, I would be a folk hero.

[nashville_brook]

20. ding ding ding!!!

[underpants]

18. You will probably also hear about how timber/logging is tied to education spending

that is true but that needs to be fixed too. Just a heads up that one of the excuses that is likely to be offered for this is the strange purely-DC agreement that ties logging to education spending in those areas.

[pushycat]

27. It is tied to everything here in Oregon. We just avoided a new tax

on personal income in my county. The justification was loss of gov money.... DeFazio got the money for this year, but next year the same issue will return. I heard on local radio some officials are considering cutting more trees next year as the solution (again).

[harpboy_ak]

30. the reason: Fed BLM & Nat Forest lands don't pay taxes!

one of the excuses that is likely to be offered for this is the strange purely-DC agreement that ties logging to education spending in those areas.

Counties count on property taxes to pay for schools. In counties where timberland is privately owned, Weyerhauser & other big landholders pay those taxes. In counties that are mostly National Forest or BLM land, where there is little private property, those lands pay no taxes. Congress has chosen over the years to pay Federal timber revenues to counties or school districts for education funding in lieu of the taxes that would be paid if the land was privately owned.

Delegations from those timber states have tried to have funding instead based on comparative property values at the local millage rates, the same tax rates that private timber landholders would pay, which really would be the fair thing to do for jurisdictions that have a high proportion of Federal land, but they haven't been able to prevail so far; Congress does not want to set precedents for Federal property paying local property taxes.

Logging on Federal forests has been reduced, as have revenues. This has been very important support for schools in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska (where the timber program has always cost more than its revenues). Other states with significant Federal land logging activity would also be affected.

[nashville_brook]

21. the spotted owl fight was never about the fracking owls -- they are an INDICATOR SPECIES

when their numbers decline it's an ominous sign that the entire forest is failing.

but this will once again be made about the fucking owls and we'll lose a valuable means for reducing carbon in the atmosphere.

THE FOREST and the ANIMALS will eventually return (especially the lower life forms like roaches). those at the TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN -- that's us humans -- are the ones who aren't going to make it.

it's not about the owls.

[glitch]

26. Well said Nashville_brook. "it's not about the owls" we're the ones who won't make it. nt

[truth2power]

22. truth2power calls for cutting the Chimp's habitat,..

reducing it to an 8x8 foot cell. :evilgrin:

[Turbineguy]

25. American people

calls for cutting Bush habitat.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

28. May spotted owls express their displeasure with him...

and pigeons and seagulls as well.

[rec_report]

29. K&R. n/t