#spotted owl

[dsamuelsonart]

Firebird

Inspiration for this piece comes from reading about animals in the aftermath of forest fires (y'know, something light). The lack of foliage after a fire can give advantages to birds of prey, such as the Spotted Owl, making it easier for them to spot and kill prey. But in turn, the lack of cover puts them at greater risk of being hunted by bigger, opportunistic predators such as the Goshawk.

To try and add a bit more whimsy or fantasy to the piece, the Goshawk is wearing an antique flint fire starter.

Watercolor on rough-press paper, about 11 x 14"

[great-and-small]

[willowbirds]

Still making my way through the Guardians of Ga’Hoole book series (recently finished book 5), so have this Otulissa doodle.

[owlbabeart]

A scarlet spotted owl for a commission on Instagram.

[birds-of-prey-daily]

Spotted Owl

[almyranpine]

first artfight attack of the year for birdeggg — their guardians of ga'hoole oc, bibi

my artfight

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The fight to protect the habitat of some of the last spotted owls in the world is now before a federal court. Lawyers for the environmental charity EcoJustice are challenging the federal government’s delay in issuing an emergency order to stop logging in a 25-square-kilometre patch of the Spuzzum Creek Watershed in British Columbia’s Fraser Canyon. “It’s actually the most endangered bird in Canada, one of the most endangered species overall,” James Hobart, Chief of the Spuzzum First Nation, told Global News. There is just one spotted owl left in the wild, two additional owls they released this year and then some in a breeding centre, he said.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[scottpartridge]

#halloween version of the Spotted Owl (day 31 of #birdtober2023)

[snototter]

A pair of Mexican spotted owls (Strix occidentalis ssp. lucida) in Arizona, USA

by Larry Reis

[doodlebethel]

Mexican spotted owl

[ekbelsher]

This is Iris and Pike from WILD IS THE WITCH, Rachel Griffin's 2022 Pacific Northwest YA fantasy! It just came out in paperback :)

[strixxxlarixxx]

Northern Spotted Owl. Strix occidentalis caurina.

[starskynder]

Spotted Owl #inktobery day 31! Challenge Complete!!! Yay!

I'm happy to have completed this challenge and I look forward to the next month with new drawings and maybe a new challenge!

[tetrameryxx]

I guess I can share this now that they are Finally ordering it haha. Spotted owl for my wildlife crew last year, going on a sweatshirt. Feels a little bit celebratory considering we are, in the district biologist's words, "recording their extinction" but we did have some breakthroughs last year and some good work done in the areas not affected by the 2020 fires.

[heycrystalsmithart]

Spotted Owl - ink drawing

[endlingmusings]

[ A northern spotted owl in Oregon, photo courtesy of Kyle Sullivan. ]

“In the U.S., where 90% of the population was historically found, the federal government listed northern spotted owls as threatened in 1990. Despite vocal opposition from loggers, lawmakers levied the Endangered Species Act and other legislation to shut down logging in vast tracts of the owls’ remaining habitat, virtually overnight.

But neither Canada nor the province of British Columbia had comparable legislation; despite listing the owls as endangered in 1986, the government allowed old-growth logging to continue apace.

By the early ’90s, the spotted owl population in British Columbia was down to fewer than 100 breeding pairs, a fifth of what the population had been before colonization. The province pulled together a recovery team, and in 1997 it implemented a management plan that, it claimed, had a 60% chance of stabilizing, and possibly improving, the population. Of the more than 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres) set aside for owls, some was in existing parks, and in much of the rest, logging was still allowed.

Meanwhile, the owl population in British Columbia continued to spiral to fewer than 30 breeding pairs by 2002, and three years later, to just 22 owls, including 6 breeding pairs.

By 2006, an independent panel of scientists decided captive breeding was necessary, and the province opened a northern spotted owl captive-breeding program, the first of its kind in the world. To date, conservationists have taken a total of 10 owls, as well as a number of eggs, from the wild for captive breeding. Though progress has been slower than hoped, the captive population is now approximately 30 owls.

Joe Foy, a campaigner with the Wilderness Committee who has been working on spotted owl conservation for more than 30 years, says the crux of the problem is that provincial governments gave forestry precedence over wildlife conservation. According to British Columbia’s Forest and Range Practices Act, timber was always the most important value of the forests, allowing provincial regulations to constrain the impact that habitat protection for wildlife could have on timber supply. That, Foy says, is why we “ended up with a broken forest, and this species almost gone.”

Hobart says the decline in owls is symptomatic of wider imbalances in the landscape. The owls are one of the species, he says, “that we consider to be the messengers from the forest, from the water, from the sky.”

Logging is not the only reason northern spotted owls are now a hair’s breadth away from extirpation in British Columbia. Invasive barred owls (Strix varia), which are native to eastern North America but have been moving westward, are also muscling out spotted owls, and more frequent and intense forest fires due to climate change are adding pressure.

But logging was undoubtedly the catalyst for their decline, and the destruction is also impacting other species. Southern mountain caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) depend on lichen in old-growth forests for food in the winter. The marbeled murelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus), an endangered seabird, needs old-growth trees for nesting — and these are still being cut down. A recent study showed that logging even impacts salmon.

The old trees also store incredible amounts of carbon in their massive trunks and root systems; preserving standing forests is considered one of the cheapest and simplest ways to fight climate change.

- Excerpt from “One left: British Columbia’s last chance on northern spotted owls” by Ruth Kamnitzer.