The laughter would have been loud and long around 1970 if anyone in Oregon suggested that a two-pound bird would stop the powerful timber industry in its tracks. Twenty-years later, no one was laughing when the northern spotted owl joined the endangered species list, providing a mechanism for a wholesale change in federal forest management.
Experts pointed out, then and still, that the issue is far bigger than the bird. Three of those experts joined forces to tell the story once again in a new book, The Making of the Northwest Forest Plan: The Wild Science of Saving Old Growth Ecosystems.
K. Norman Johnson, Gordon Reeves, and Jerry Franklin all played key parts in detailing the fate of old growth forests and the implications. Some combination of the authors join us for an extended look back.