September 27, 1995
Web posted at: 2:55 p.m. EDT
In the third part of a series on endangered species, CNN takes a closer look at the fight to save the marbled murrelet.
From Reporter Susan Reed
SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- The fight over endangered species and jobs is centered on the West Coast, where timber management and its effect on wildlife is a constant battleground. (1,751K QuickTime movie)
It used to be the spotted owl was the darling of environmentalists. Years of negotiation with loggers gave it a safer future. Now the problem is another bird, the marbled murrelet. It lives in old growth redwoods and is almost extinct in the area.
The species very clearly has declined greatly, according to Phil Detrich of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "The decline in nesting habitat in the lower 48 is about 90 percent from its original extent," he said.
The murrelet has become a bird of passion to the environmental movement, because saving it under the Endangered Species Act also would save the ancient coastal redwoods in Washington, Oregon and Northern California. Seventy thousand acres remain in public parks and up to 6,000 are in private hands, mainly those of Pacific Lumber, which owns in the Headwaters Forest in northern California's Humboldt County.
The forest habitat is the key to the bird's survival. "If we continue to cut down the old trees along the coast, there won't be enough nesting habitat for it to survive," said Michael Spear of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Pacific Lumber is under attack for its plans to remove dead and dying redwoods from the Headwaters Forest. Environmentalists believe that will harm the murrelets.
"If they are going to go in and begin helicopter operations they are going to blow these nests right out of the trees," said Cecelia Lanman with the Environmental Protection Information Center. "They're going to end up damaging this area to the point of where it will no longer be good habitat for the species."
The fight over the murrelet is now centered in a San Francisco court. All sides are eagerly awaiting a federal judge's decision on whether salvage logging in the Headwaters Forest can go ahead.
Being a business, Pacific Lumber wants to sell the expensive redwood. It has agreed to stop cutting live trees and take only the dead and dying redwood in the Headlands Forest. But they're doing it under protest because the company argues the murrelet isn't really endangered at all.
"You go up to Alaska and they say the census up there is over a million birds," said John Campbell, president of Pacific Lumber. "So I don't think the species as a whole is in jeopardy."
Pacific Lumber's got friends in Washington who agree and who want to revise the Endangered Species Act. "One of the problems, one of the intriguing aspects of the Endangered Species Act, is that it finds species to be endangered even though that is only applicable in a relatively small area," said Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Washington.
Forest Service officials say saving the murrelet is going to be more difficult than saving the spotted owl. If any more forest is lost, they say, the task may be impossible.
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