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Friday, March 25, 2022
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Opinion
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com | CapitalPress.com/opinion
Our View
Researchers give spotted owls a boost
F
ederal wildlife managers and
researchers appear to have
solved at least part of the
riddle of how to save the northern
spotted owl.
You will recall that more than
30 years ago the owl was protected
as “threatened” under the federal
Endangered Species Act. Its numbers
were shrinking. All that managers
knew at that time was that it nested
in the nooks and crannies of old-
growth trees. To keep the owl’s num-
bers from shrinking faster, many of
the old-growth federal forests in the
Pacific Northwest were declared off
limits to timber harvest.
Along the way, the northern spot-
ted owl became the poster child for
all that is wrong with the ESA. The
timber industry was sacrificed, caus-
ing deep wounds to the economy and
the loss of jobs in the woods and the
mills, yet spotted owl numbers con-
tinued to shrink.
More research was clearly needed.
Tom Kogut/USFS
A northern spotted owl in Washington
state. Researchers found that removing
barred owls helped spotted owl popu-
lations.
Was the owl’s survival solely depen-
dent on protecting old-growth for-
ests, or were other factors involved?
When scientists took a close look,
they found another cause for the
spotted owl’s problems: the barred
owl.
A cousin of the spotted owl, the
barred owl is not native to the Pacific
Northwest. It out-competes spotted
owls and takes over their range. As
a result, barred owls were contribut-
ing to the downfall of the spotted owl
even after old-growth logging was
severely reduced.
Wildlife managers came up with
an experiment. They would get rid of
barred owls in an effort to take pres-
sure off the spotted owl.
That experiment appears to have
worked. A federal study last year
found that spotted owl populations
stabilized where the barred owls
were removed. But where the barred
owls remained, the spotted owl popu-
lation decreased by 12% a year.
This is a major breakthrough for
wildlife managers around the region.
Though the nearly decade-long study
is over, wildlife managers now know
how to help the spotted owl: get rid
of barred owls.
But another interesting thing has
happened. Instead of acknowledging
the success of the barred owl removal
efforts, some in the environmental
community seem disappointed. So
disappointed, in fact, that they have
gone to court to get a judge to rule
A wake-up call to our
national leaders from
a Western rancher
Our View
F
BLM
A covered wagon brought settlers to the West. Now some Western farmers and ranchers are heading
east.
The Oregon Trail is a
two-way street
T
he political leadership in the West
needs to take note of the growing
number of farm families that are
picking up stakes and moving east.
In the 1840s, white settlers from east of
the Mississippi River started making the
arduous journey west, pushing up the Ore-
gon Trail to the Pacific Northwest.
Others followed the trail to Fort Hall in
present-day Idaho, then turned southwest on
the California Trail to reach the gold fields
of the Sierra Nevada and the farmland of the
Central Valley.
Land was cheap and opportunity was
within relatively easy grasp. The West
offered fewer restrictions than were in place
in the established eastern communities.
Many longtime farm and ranch families
proudly point to their pioneer heritage.
But over the last decade or so, there’s
been a small but growing number of farm
families picking up stakes and moving east
of the coastal states to escape tough business
climates.
It’s a reverse Oregon Trail of sorts, with
modern day emigrants moving to Idaho,
Montana, the Plains and the Midwest.
While it can hardly be described as a mass
exodus, people are noticing an uptick in the
number of farm operations moving east.
“People have talked about mov-
ing for years and years, but now people
are actually doing it,” said Ryan Jacob-
sen, manager of the Fresno County Farm
Bureau in California. “Statistically, it’s
still probably a blip on the radar. But it’s
that logging and other factors, not the
barred owl, were the primary cause
of the spotted owl’s problems.
They argued that areas with no
spotted owls should still be protected
from logging, and that the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service needed to do
more environmental studies even
after doing an environmental impact
statement and an environmental
assessment.
Follow the science. We hear that a
lot these days, as special interests and
politicians cherry pick scientific stud-
ies to back up their narrative. They
trumpet the “science” they like and
ignore the rest.
In the case of the northern spotted
owls, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals was able to see through the
paper-thin arguments of the environ-
mental group and acknowledge the
successes that came from getting rid
of barred owls. Instead, the environ-
mental group wanted to stop logging.
It’s as though they care more about
the trees than the spotted owls.
crazy that it’s actually happening.”
Farmers cite several reasons for moving:
seeking less crowded places; political con-
cerns; COVID protocols; estate taxes, reg-
ulations and associated costs; opportunities
for expansion; “climate migrants” fleeing
drought; and farmers seeking more secure
water supplies.
The common thread is that farmers and
ranchers are moving to places where they
believe their businesses, and families, can
better thrive.
The tax and regulatory climate on the
West Coast has made it increasingly difficult
for family farming operations.
Carbon policies have made fuel more
expensive. COVID regulations have reduced
the availability of labor, and thus have
reduced yield while increasing costs.
State legislatures have grown openly hos-
tile to agriculture, proposing gross receipt
tax schemes that would turn the already pre-
carious economics of farming on its head.
They have adopted alternative energy pol-
icies that encourage converting farmland into
wind and solar energy facilities. They’ve
proposed increasing riparian buffers. They
have restricted common pesticides, herbi-
cides and fumigants.
Most farmers can’t pick up and leave. But,
they can sell out to bigger operations.
Through increased regulation and legisla-
tion, state governments will hasten the con-
solidation of the industry, and the ruin of the
rural communities that depend on a viable
population to thrive.
ifteen years ago, Fam-
ily Farm Alliance leaders
began ramping up efforts
to convey the growing con-
cerns many had with what they
were seeing happen across the
West. Agricultural water sup-
plies were being reallocated to
meet growing urban and envi-
ronmental water demands.
We started asking our polit-
ical leaders pointed questions
that we thought demanded
answers. At what point will too
much agricultural land be taken
out of production? Do we want
to rely on imported food for
safety and security? We pointed
out to policymakers that Euro-
peans, who have starved within
memory, understood the impor-
tance of preserving their food
production capability. They
recognized it for the national
security issue that it is.
And some of those countries
still do.
Earlier this month, Business
Post reported that all farmers in
Ireland will be asked to plant
some of their land in wheat,
barley and other grains, as
part of emergency plans being
drawn up by the government to
offset a predicted food security
crisis in Europe amid Russia’s
ongoing assault on Ukraine.
The Global Agricultural
Productivity (GAP) Report in
2010 first quantified the differ-
ence between the current rate
of agricultural productivity
growth and the pace required to
meet future world food needs.
That report predicted that
total global agricultural out-
put would have to be doubled
by the year 2050 to meet the
food needs of a growing global
population.
There was for a long time
an inborn appreciation and
awareness by our own policy
leaders for the critical impor-
tance of a stable food supply.
Now, it appears that many sim-
ply assume that food is some-
thing that comes from the
local grocery store. Our argu-
ments in support of Western
irrigated agriculture have in
recent years been drowned in a
flood of commentary from far-
away critics who downplay and
even criticize the importance of
using water to produce afford-
able and safe food and fiber.
Politicians, activists, and the
media appear to favor another
message: climate change is
destroying the planet, and we
must take immediate and dras-
tic action to halt it.
Meanwhile, the more press-
ing need to produce 50% more
food worldwide in the com-
ing decades to fill the loom-
ing global “food gap” is hardly
mentioned at all.
GUEST
VIEW
Patrick
O’Toole
At a time when the future
of Ukraine’s ability to help
feed the outside world is at
risk, the world’s best produc-
ers — Western irrigators — are
watching their water flushed to
the sea to purportedly help fish
populations. Decades of empir-
ical evidence has failed so far
to show a positive response
from those targeted fish to such
water shifting schemes. Mean-
while, our ability to increase
food productivity is further
diminished.
The grim global hunger con-
ditions we once expected to
encounter in 2050 may now hit
us a decade ahead of schedule.
The U.S. needs a stable
domestic food supply, just as
it needs a stable energy sup-
ply. As we teeter on the brink
of world war, that stability
becomes even more pressing.
Earlier this month, the Fam-
ily Farm Alliance released a
white paper that further out-
lines the insanity of the current
situation, where our govern-
ment is taking actions to with-
hold water from the world’s
best food producers, at a
time when global food short-
age looms. I encourage you to
download it and read further.
Western irrigated agriculture
is a strategic national resource,
and the role of the federal
government in the 21st cen-
tury should be to protect and
enhance that resource. There
may never be a better time than
now for thoughtful and coura-
geous leaders to stand up and
shout down the critics and back
seat drivers who don’t have a
single minute’s worth of expe-
rience in the Western water
arena.
If not now, when? If not us,
who?
At the Family Farm Alli-
ance, we will continue our
efforts to ensure Western irri-
gated agriculture continues to
play a vital role in feeding our
nation, while keeping our rural
communities and the environ-
ment healthy.
At a time of unprecedented
change, one certainty holds
firm and true — our nation’s
most valuable natural resource
must be preserved.
Patrick O’Toole is president
of the Family Farm Alliance,
which advocates for family
farmers, ranchers, irrigation
districts and allied industries in
17 Western states.