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Eco group pooh-poohs plan to breed owls in captivity

Ethan Baron
The Province

Friday, November 04, 2005

Plans are under way for a captive-breeding program to save B.C.'s critically endangered population of spotted owls.

But one prominent environmental group is blasting the idea as "chicken-coop" science.

An estimated 25 spotted owls remain in this province, including six pairs and one juvenile.

The Western Canada Wilderness Committee has projected that the owl will be extinct in B.C. by 2010.

Kevin Jardine, who heads B.C.'s Species at Risk Co-ordination Office, said some scientists believe the bird's demise in B.C. is "imminent," while others give it up to 30 years if nothing is done to save it.

In 1993, about 100 spotted owls lived in B.C. Old-growth logging and an invasion of barred owls -- which compete for food and habitat -- from the U.S. were the primary causes of the owl's decline, Jardine said.

Short-term action must include captive breeding, moving the owls, offering supplemental food and managing prey, predators and competitors, Jardine said.

But the WCWC argues that Victoria is working on captive breeding only because it wants to keep logging the spotted owl's habitat -- and to avoid the publicity nightmare of a species disappearing just before the 2010 Olympics.

"You can get great PR by showing the little cage with the endangered critter in it," said WCWC campaign director Joe Foy. "Meanwhile, your buddies in the timber industry are chainsawing down the rest of the habitat."

Foy also dismissed government arguments that a pair of captive owls was mated successfully in the U.S.

Even if it would work in B.C., he added, acquiring spotted owls -- near extinction in B.C. and protected by law in the U.S. -- could be difficult or impossible.

"We really need to protect the habitat and we should disavow ourselves that we could raise these spotted owls in a coop like a bunch of chickens," Foy said.

"If you get to the position where the only place a creature can exist is in a pen, you've lost that creature."

ebaron@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Province 2005