© Environment News Service (ENS) 2001
June 22, 2001

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, June 22, 2001 (ENS) - The presence of a rare spotted owl in an area permitted for logging in the Fraser Valley has prompted a provincial Supreme Court judge to grant a temporary injunction against logging in a case brought by a conservation group.

Mr. Justice Anderson Wednesday granted the Western Canada Wilderness Committee an injunction to halt Cattermole Timber from logging a cut block in Siwash Creek in the Chilliwack Forest District where a female northern spotted owl is known to reside.

Neither Canada nor Britich Columbia has a law to protect endangered species and species at risk. Spotted owls have been in rapid decline. Now only an estimated 22 pairs remain in Canada.

The injunction, which expires on Monday afternoon, will temporarily protect the owl's habitat in order to give lawyers from the Sierra Legal Defense Fund the opportunity to argue the case on behalf of the Wilderness Committee.

The Western Canada Wilderness Committee is applying for a judicial review of the District Forest Manager's decision to grant the company acutting permit in critical spotted owl habitat.

In order to get the injunction, the Wilderness Committee had to agree to an undertaking that it would be liable for damages to Cattermole Timber if the court decides in the timber company's favor.

"We have been warned that our injunction could cost us a lot of money. But someone has to stand up to defend the owls and the threatened ecosystem they inhabit. That's our job," said Western Canada Wilderness Committee Director Joe Foy.

Cattermole told the court the company is anxious to drop the timber in the cut block under dispute and yard it out in order to meet an export permit deadline of July 31.

Lawyers for the province who are representing the Chilliwack District Forest Manager did not take a position one way or another on whether or not the court should grant the temporary injunction.

The Wilderness Committee has had a long history of defending the owls including taking the province's Chief Forester to court in 1995 in a failed attempt to get the allowable annual timber cut lowered in order to save enough spotted owl habitat for this species to survive.

The Northern spotted owl is listed in Canada as endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and is red listed by the British Columbia Provincial Wildlife Branch. But the species is only red listed by the B.C. Ministry of Environment Lands and Parks, and there is no current legal designation as "endangered" under the Provincial Wildlife Act.

British Columbia is the only province where the spotted owl occurs in Canada.

The spotted owl requires old growth coastal forests for nesting, foraging, roosting, and security. This puts its survival directly at odds with clearcut logging of B.C.'s old growth forests. Error: Unable to read footer file.