Environment's Little Big Bird

The northern spotted owl has become to the timber industry what the tiny snail darter was to dam builders -- a symbol for environmentalists, only cuter. In the 1990s, the owl may curb logging in the Pacific Northwest just as the small fish temporarily halted construction of the Tellico Dam in Tennessee. Last week a panel of federal scientists called for a halt to logging on up to 40% of the national forest land in Oregon, Washington and California to keep the owl from becoming extinct. An estimated 1,700 pairs survive, a drop of more than half the population since 1800. Even with protection, the slow-breeding owl would take a century to increase to 2,200 pairs.

The recommendation should heavily influence a decision in June by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service whether to formally declare the owl an endangered species. The designation would make it a federal crime to disturb the bird's habitat -- the woodlands that have succumbed to chain saws at the rate of 55,000 acres a year. Only about one-tenth of the original forests in the continental U.S. remain undisturbed.

Loggers argue that court injunctions have already deprived them of much of their prime lumber -- and their livelihood. Protecting the owl, they warn, would silence the mills once and for all, and drive at least 9,000 jobs into extinction. Environmentalists believe that may be a price worth paying for preservation -- not just of the 14-in. owl but also of the 300-ft.-high Douglas firs, the western hemlock and the Sitka spruce that predate Columbus' arrival.