Is there an environmental law that Bush won't try to kill?
While the obsession to rush to war abroad continues, it is impossible to listen to the news these days without hearing about the efforts of the Bush Administration to completely rewrite environmental laws across the country. Clean air, clean water, forestry laws...they are all under attack. Today's local news on NPR offers items about a reconsideration of listing for the Northern Spotted Owl and Marbled Murrelet as threatened species. Such a delisting would help revive logging of old growth forests if the species are suddenly found to have recovered. Part of the justification offered for reconsidering the status of Spotted Owls is a report by a forest industry administrator that he once saw a Spotted Owl in his back yard in Olympia, Wash.

Odd...I know people who have been birding for years who have not seen a Spotted Owl, and those who do want to see Spotted Owls know that they have to go to specific locations in the old growth forests of the Olympic Peninsula to find the reclusive birds. Of course, a logging industry exec wouldn't have any ulterior motive for claiming he saw a Spotted Owl in his suburban yard, and of course he would be an expert at identifying owl species and he would have no problem telling the difference between the much more likely Barred Owl and the reclusive Spotted Owl. Of course...

For the record, I have been birding for many years and last year I drove more than 16,000 mailes and spent countless hours in the wild while doing research for our upcoming book, Birding Washington. In all, I saw 264 species of birds in Washington state last year. I have never seen a Northern Spotted Owl...