[mobglob-discuss] Hunting Spotted Owls With Chainsaws

[Garlic Bobcat]

Folks; here is my latest article.  It is subtitled EXPIRAMENTS IN 
EXTERMINATION AT ELK AND ANDERSON CREEK.  This is a research paper, the 
facts are substantiated and a critique of capitalism/logging industry is 
included.  Feel free to use in whatever way possible.  Thanks for reading, 
it is the only reason I write.
-joey



Hunting Spotted Owls With Chainsaws
Joey Only

ANDERSON CREEK OLD GROWTH
Nestled in the mountains of industrial logging north of Hope British 
Columbia is a bastion of old growth forest.  These woods at Anderson Creek 
are/were home to one of the most endangered birds in Canada, the Northern 
Spotted Owl.  The Anderson Creek logging road starts off the Trans Canada 
Hwy near the Spuzzum (First Nation) Band Office in the Fraser Canyon.  Early 
last summer Cattermole Timber Co. gated the logging road at kilometre 14 so 
that a dirt bike or vehicle could not pass.  People at the Spuzzum Band 
Office were aware that the Chilliwack based logging company had put these 
gates up.  A Cattermole manager justified the gate saying ‘their property 
could be damaged by trespassers’ and that ‘drunken yahoos could come in and 
shoot up the machinery’.

On Aug. 21st myself, and two others, stumbled across a newly locked gate at 
kilometre 6.5.  We’d brought bicycles to venture past the gate at km.14 but 
we were forced to park the car at km.6.5.  The Anderson Creek logging road, 
on Crown land, had numerous ‘private property’ signs posted along it.  
Nonetheless we set off in the hot sun pushing our bikes up the mountain in 
the direction of a logging project Cattermole wanted no one to see.

We met a yellow Cattermole pickup truck, heard and saw some machinery, but 
there was no logging.  Because of forest fire hazards forest work had 
stalled across the province until mid September.

The lookout at km.14.5 has a splendid view of the region; the damage from 
industrial development is evident.  To the west are hydro towers running 
through the round mountains near the Fraser Canyon.  The forests are 
devastated, cut to the extent that there are dozens of re-growing cut blocks 
at different heights.  It is difficult from a distance to tell what has been 
cut when.  Some blocks are bald because of erosion, while others are brown 
from nutrient loss.  Sometimes it is possible to look around the effects of 
logging and pretend they are not there, but this region has been logged so 
that it leaves little to the imagination.  Amongst the devastation it’s a 
wonder that an old growth can still be found.

>From the lookout the ecological uniqueness of the region is also evident, it 
is a transition zone, neither Coastal Mountains nor Interior.  East of the 
cut block there are mountains rocky, bald and scoured by ancient glaciers.  
South of here the Coquihalla Hwy meanders around similar mountains, passing 
between summits east of Hope.

>From kilometre 14 the logging road goes along a ridge, passes long abandoned 
logging camps, goes down then over Anderson Creek, follows along the north 
side of the valley up a series of switchbacks, and through a recently 
reforested block. At kilometre 23 the old growth can be seen on the south 
side of the creek clear across the valley.  The road carries on and crosses 
the creek again at kilometre 26.  The old growth is about a kilometre and a 
half further.

This ancient forest is on a steep grade so that its trees have not grown 
beyond a certain width, it is profitable tall and straight lumber.  In 
September Cattermole cut this rare ancient forest, it is in these last great 
trees of Anderson Creek the spotted owl may “hoot - hoot hoot - hoot” for 
the last time.

Photographs of Anderson Creek logging:
<http://media.wildernesscommittee.org/news/2003/10/589.php>

EXPERIMENTS IN SPOTTED OWL EXTERMINATION
A spotted owl was kidnapped near Lillooet in the fall of 2002 by BC 
government biologists.  Nicknamed Hope, the owl was released near Manning 
Provincial Park (close to Hope BC).  Hope was introduced into a forest that 
was believed to have a single male living in it.  The area was occupied by a 
mating couple who attacked Hope and drove her out of the old growth forest.  
Within a few weeks Hope starved to death.

Early in the summer of 2003 five more baby spotted owls were captured by 
government biologists and fitted with little backpacks carrying radio 
transmitters.  Scientific data exists to explain the decline in Owl 
populations.  Studies in the United States have concluded that spotted owls 
prefer to live in old growth forests so they frequently die in clear cuts 
searching for habitat.  Juvenile owls fly up to 200km looking for suitable 
habitat, only 1 in 5 survives their first winter.  The tagging of spotted 
owls is extra torture for the last members of a disappearing species.  It is 
likely all five of these owls will not survive the coming winter.  Says 
endangered species campaigner Gwen Barlee:

Although the BC government formed a Spotted Owl Recovery Team (SORT) early 
in the year with orders to come up with an emergency interim recovery 
strategy quickly in order to stop the fast decline in owl numbers, Victoria 
is stalling on implementing the emergency plan.  Government biologists agree 
that the greatest threat to spotted owls is the logging of their old growth 
forest habitat.  BC is the only area in Canada that has spotted owls and 
their numbers have dropped steeply in the past few years to less than 10% of 
historic levels.  Scientists believe that less than a handful of breeding 
pairs remain in the province out of an historic level of about 500 pairs.  
We are watching the species go extinct right before our very eyes due to 
government inaction and the greed of some of BC’s logging companies.

The ‘Spotted Owl Management Plan’ (SOMP) was initiated by the BC government 
in 1995, SOMP was suppose to be able to integrate the needs of the Spotted 
Owl with those of the timber industry.  The Canadian Spotted Owl Recovery 
Team was established in 1990, they concluded that the SOMP did not provide 
the Owl with an adequate chance of stabilizing its population.   In 
approving the Spotted Owl Management Plan the BC Government cabinet accepted 
a 60% probability that Spotted Owl populations will stabilize and improve in 
the long run.  For the Owl this is a higher risk policy than what is 
practiced in the United States.  The Spotted Owl Management Plan was 
approved in 1997.  Under section one of the Forest Practices Code of British 
Columbia Act, the Spotted Owl is a forest resource.  The status of SOMP is a 
policy document, and does not have legal power under the Forest Practices 
Code.

The Western Spotted Owl (also known as the Northern Spotted Owl) was 
declared an endangered species by the government of Canada in 1986.  
Biologists disagree as to how many of them are likely left in BC.  Some hold 
that 25 breeding pairs remain while others believe that there may be only 
15.  Four nests have been confirmed.  However all biologists agree that the 
species is in rapid decline because of lost old growth habitat, and that 
logging happened at three Owl sites this year.

The Owls hunt at night with the aid of keen black and white vision.  These 
stealth hunters sneak up on rodents, insects, frogs, birds and bats, doing 
their best hunting in the open space under the old growth canopy.  Spotted 
owls live in the cavities of trees and in stumps.  They lay an egg every 3-4 
days in April until there are 2-4 eggs, after a month the eggs hatch.  
Spotted owls are 43-48cm long and are brown and white.  They are easy to 
find when nearby.  They almost always respond to the call of another owl, 
“hoot - hoot hoot - hoot”.  Following this pattern, regardless of tone or 
words used, the owl calls back.

THE DECISION TO LOG ELK & ANDERSON
Cattermole Timber Co. owner George Mohammed donated $5,000 to the BC Liberal 
winning election campaign, and Cattermole Timber Ltd. put $1,000 into the 
war chest.  Logging related industries donated hundreds of thousands to the 
Liberal’s campaign.  Mysteriously the Liberals put the Working Forest 
Initiative into effect next summer, a plan to open 45 million acres of 
public land for private companies to exploit.   Former Federal New 
Democratic Party leader Ed Broadbent said, “Corporate donations lead to a 
real or perceived favouritism in governments treatment of companies.”  The 
BC government subsidizes and bends over backwards to accommodate the 
forestry industry, subsidies amount to billions.  All its laws and 
institutions lean toward helping big (logging) companies cash in.  
Cattermole intends to log nine more blocks in the Elk Creek area in the 
coming years.  On Nov.21st, when this years logging at Elk Creek was nearly 
finished, Foy of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee said:

Also, yesterday some very interesting information came to us by way of a 
Freedom of Information request.  Cattermole is paying only 25 cents per 
cubic metre for the wood they log at Elk Creek!  At their public info 
session Ted Holtby (Cattermole) had said that they would likely be paying 
somewhere in the order of $20 to $30 per cubic metres - what a sad joke.   I 
wonder if (MLA) Penner, or Clint Hames or (MLA) John Les knew how low the 
timber was going for.  At 25 cents it doesn't even cover the cost of the 
public process.  It's subsidized logging at its worse.  That works out to 
about $7.50 a loaded logging truckload.  According to the FOI document 
Cattermole wants to remove 44,693 cubic metres so they will pay $11,173 for 
the whole thing!   WCWC would have -- and could have paid to buy the timber 
rights and leave the timber standing if we had been given the chance to bid 
- which we weren't.

Development at Elk Creek has been avoided for so long because it’s been a 
domestic source of Chilliwack’s water since 1905.  In 1974 Whonnock Lumber 
Co. (predecessor to Interfor) applied to log Elk Creek.  BC Hydro also 
applied to log a right of way in 1974 for a transmission line that would run 
up to Dunnville Creek, next to the Elk Creek watershed.  The government’s 
Water Resources Service rejected the application in 1975.  Cattermole will 
likely pay $11,000 in stumpage taxes to the Province of British Columbia, 
threatening the integrity of an entire city’s watershed, profiting 
$12million.  Andy Miller is a biologist involved with the Spotted Owl 
Recovery Team, and he also works for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee 
(WC2).  Mr.Miller located the spotted owl nest in the ancient forest at 
Anderson Creek, then made vocal and visual contact with a spotted owl near 
upper Elk Creek falls outside of Chilliwack BC June 2nd 2003.

WC2 pursued a court injunction to stop Cattermole Timber Co. from harvesting 
the Anderson Creek spotted owl habitat on May 2nd 2002, and temporarily 
succeeded.  On August 29th 2002 the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled in 
favour of the forestry industry saying that BC’s forestry laws do not 
protect the Spotted Owl from extinction.  The Honourable Mr. Justice 
Shabbits presided over the case.  At issue was the decision made by Cindy 
Stern of the South Island Forest District of the Ministry of Forests on 
September 4th 2001 to allow Cattermole to log a spotted owl habitat.  In 
Sec. 53 of Shabbits ruling it says:

Although it is true that the decision of Sept. 4th 2001 does not require 
monitoring of the effect of timber harvesting on cut block 37-1 on the Owl, 
Ms. Stern said in her decision of Sept. 4th 2001 that the experience gained 
by the logging would provide substantially more information to assist in the 
determinations of future harvesting proposals.  It is currently a matter of 
speculation or argument whether timber harvesting might improve or enhance 
Owl habitat.  The petitioner (Western Canada Wilderness Committee) is of the 
view that logging cannot enhance the habitat of the Owl.  In her September 
4th 2001 decision, and in the radio interview (CBC Almanac) Ms. Stern said 
that the logging might enhance the habitat of the Owl, and she referred to 
the thinning of forest permitting an increase in the amount of available 
prey to the Owl, in particular the flying squirrel.

Ms. Stern and Mr. Shabbits believed that Cattermole’s logging has scientific 
merit.  The courts consider Ms. Sterns decision to be a balance of 
commercial and environmental interests.  They both ruled that Cattermole’s 
logging plan gave the nesting Owls a 60% chance of survival (as recommended 
by the Spotted Owl Management Plan).  After all Cattermole Timber Co. 
logging plans leave a “light foot print” by using measures such as 
heli-logging and strip cutting.  In July 2003 the Western Canada Wilderness 
Committee’s court injunction against Cattermole was defeated.  Justice 
Jo-Ann Prowse agreed with the Supreme Court Decision that allowed Cattermole 
to log 88 hectares of old growth at Anderson Creek.  WC2 was ordered to 
payout $11,855 for Cattermole’s court costs.

In 2003 Chilliwack District Forest Manager Kerry Grozier approved 
Cattermole’s logging proposal at Elk Creek with justifications similar to 
Ms.Stern and Justice Shabbits.  Kerry Grozier’s 77page report can be found 
on <http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/dck/Elk/RationaleElk.pdf>.  The Ministry of 
Forestry labelled the Elk Creek rainforest a class 6 forest (aged 100-120 
years old) with 150 ancient trees (representing 1% of the forest) scattered 
about.  Eyewitnesses at Elk Creek have counted many of the fallen trees to 
be older than 150 years old.  Cattermole did not intend to take the very 
oldest trees.  Kerry Grozier and Cattermole agreed that the ancient trees 
could destroy other valuable trees when falling, and are difficult to cut 
into merchantable lengths.  These ancient trees are not profitable to 
harvest.  The decision was not based on conservation.

In Grozier’s report Elk Creek is classed as a Coastal Western Hemlock dry 
maritime subzone and is ‘not the last of its kind’.  If Elk Creek is not a 
rare eco-system, and the trees were of a common age, why did Cattermole have 
to log them?   They knew that a spotted owl was in the area, the Owls are 
nearly extinct, and people fiercely opposed the project.  Cattermole did not 
log the exact spot biologist where Andy Miller saw the Owl because a 70m 
clearance is required around Elk Creek.  But the Spotted Owl Management Plan 
is more or less a tool to approve logging projects; Kerry Grozier said this 
about SOMP:

The goal of the strategy was to achieve a ‘reasonable level of probability’ 
that owl populations will stabilise, and possibly improve, over the long 
term, without significant short-term impacts on timber supply and forestry 
employment.  The strategy was developed in hopes of bringing stability and 
long term viability to the spotted owl population and also remove much of 
the uncertainty facing the industry over the future of forestry within the 
range of the Owl.

Chilliwack District Manager for the Ministry of Forests Kerry Grozier 
explicitly stated 30 times in his report that no logging road would go into 
Elk Creek.   However Cattermole is now going ahead with plans to remove the 
fallen timber by cutting a road into Elk Creek via Marble Hill road.  The 
logging is over at Elk Creek now and it is hard to imagine how it improved 
the habitat for the Spotted Owl.  800 truckloads of wood ($12million) fell 
in the Elk Creek Rainforest despite angry actions by environmentalists to 
slow the logging.  The daily racket of helicopters and chainsaws, 
selectively logging, disturbed all the creatures of the forest.

The trail protesters hiked into Elk Creek had spray painted messages on it 
by Cattermole fallers such as ‘keep out’ and ‘trail closed for the season, 
see you next summer.’  Trees have been felled over the path making it 
difficult to get in to see the damage.  The way the forest has been opened 
up lets in a lot of sunlight; this will change the nature of the eco-system 
as bushier growth takes over.  The Marble Hill road is the last thing 
Cattermole must cut to get the millions off the forest floor.  Incidentally 
Cattermole received its last audit from the Forest Practices Board in 1998 
regarding Anderson Creek and the Nahatlatch River near Boston Bar.

Board Chair Kenneth Moore said, “there were two significant aspects of the 
operations that were not in compliance, both of which involve road 
construction, maintenance, and deactivation activities.”  “Cattermole’s 
roads were found to (have) inadequate installation and deactivation of one 
road, this was causing significant erosion.”

In July of 2001 Len Blackstock of Cattermole visited the Boothroyd Band of 
the Nahatlatch Valley to discuss a proposal to log select blocks.  The 
proposal on the table was resoundingly similar to Cattermole’s plans for Elk 
and Anderson Creek.  Blackstock said that helicopter logging was the 
preferred method to harvest between, “30, 40, 50% of the volume (forest), 
and that is not the old growth, that is the secondary growth only.  Kumsheen 
elder Nathan Spinks spoke saying, “this valley is the breadbasket for the 
Nlakapamux people.”

The Nahatlatch Valley has been the traditional hunting and gathering grounds 
for generations, much the same as how Elk Creek and Mt.Cheam have been used 
by the Pilalt at Cheam First Nation.  People at Cheam expressed bitter 
disappointment with Cattermole’s consultation process for Elk Creek.  Former 
Cheam Chief June Quip says ‘that the consultation wasn’t up to the standards 
of the Delgamuukw decision.  The consultation process with indigenous people 
has to have weight by recognizing that they have traditional title to their 
own lands.’  Cattermole has shown no regard for spotted owls or aboriginal 
title, while the legal system has accommodated their every dream.

AINSWORTH LUMBER CO. - THE OTHER OWL KILLER
Ainsworth Lumber Co. of Lillooet clear-cut a forest that biologists claimed 
was the home of a Spotted Owl.  A male Owl had been located in the fall of 
2002 at Nesikep Creek, logging began there in March 2003.  Despite warnings 
from ecologists and the Ministry of Water, Land, and Air Protection 
Ainsworth said they were not in time; it would have been a ‘hardship for 
them to stop the logging’.  From 1997 to 2001 Ainsworth paid 25 cents/cubic 
metre for 66% of the trees it cut on public land, including 600 year old 
trees at Truax Creek.  In 2001 logging companies in the Kamloops Forest 
Region paid on average $23.12 in stumpage fees to the BC Government for 
every cubic metre of wood logged.  The average paid in the Lillooet Forest 
District was $4.24 per cubic metre citing regional unemployment as a factor 
in putting the stumpage fee so low.  Ainsworth Lumber Co. average stumpage 
fee was $1.30.

Ainsworth cut down one spotted owl site while Cattermole cashed in on two of 
them in 2003.  After the logging began Spotted Owl Recovery Team biologist 
Andy Miller was unsuccessful in relocating the Owl.  It was likely that the 
Owl with a mate fled the area, and could have starved to death unable to 
find a new nesting site.  CEO Catherine Ainsworth made over $790,000 in 
salary and bonuses in 2002.  The spotted owl experienced more hardship than 
Catherine Ainsworth.

Images of Ainsworth’s logging: 
media.wildernesscommittee.org/news/2003/06/6.php


CEASELESS CAPITALISM, VORACIOUS HARVESTING AND CORPORATE PROFIT
Canadian Forest Products (CANFOR) and International Forests Products 
(INTERFOR) agreed not to log Spotted Owl territory, smaller companies like 
Cattermole (though not that small at all) have continued to target owl 
habitat.  Federal Minister of Environment David Anderson agreed to take some 
vague actions for the owl no sooner than June 1st 2004.  By June 2004 the 
Working Forest Initiative (which privatizes 45 million acres of Crown 
forests) will be law.  The WFI will force the provincial government to 
compensate companies who are prevented from cutting a forest.  These laws 
subsidize the logging industries and privatize the forests to ‘ensure the 
stability of the industry’.

The Lower Mainland logging industry has been in steady decline during the 
1990’s.  The number of logging firms decreased by 20.6% between 95-99, 
combined with a 26.1% decline in export to Asian markets in November 99.  A 
study produced by Kiwantlen College on the Lower Mainland logging industry 
indicated that wildlife, scenic concerns, watershed protection and forest 
sustainability have impacted Lower Mainland logging companies like 
Chilliwack’s Cattermole Timber Co.  Says the report from 2001:

The result has been a reduction in the Vancouver region’ s allowable annual 
cut of 6.3% between 1992 and 1996, one of the sharpest declines in the 
province.  The resulting decrease in the supply of raw materials has turned 
many forest products companies into logging in difficult areas that were 
previously ignored, and harvesting other species and smaller sizes of wood 
that are now included in the annual cut.

Between 1991 and 1995 the Lower Mainland forestry sector lost 1055 jobs, a 
15.2% drop.  The forestry sector is not expected to grow for another decade. 
  During the logging of Elk Creek in October 2003 loggers were flown in by 
Cattermole to speed up the cut due to extensive protests in and out of the 
forest.  Although 1055 jobs have been lost regionally, George Mohammed of 
Cattermole and other executives are as wealthy as ever.  It is estimated 
that 20 temporary jobs were made out of Elk Creek with the potential profit 
being as high as $12 million.

The logging at Elk Creek did nothing for the long-range interests of the 
community of Chilliwack and its economy.  Driving to Vancouver from 
Chilliwack Cattermole’s wood lot can be seen, the raw logs of Anderson Creek 
are piled up to be exported to mills in the United States.  The milling jobs 
go south, machines harvest trees like corn, and logging executives make huge 
profits.  Ex-logging towns like Lillooet BC are devastated with 40% 
unemployment rates.  The BC Liberals cut taxes for the rich and cut people 
off of welfare.  CEO Catherine Ainsworth’s salary could support 16 families 
in her devastated hometown of Lillooet.  Before hi-tech logging was 
commonplace half as much wood could be harvested employing twice as many 
people.

Surely the interests of capitalism quietly want the Spotted Owl gone for 
good.  Then the question of logging its old growth habitat will be solved, 
and the ‘stability of the industry’ will be guaranteed.  Free market 
capitalism can only exist when combined with constant economic growth, a 
stall in growth is called a recession.  The point is: protecting a small 
piece of old growth Owl habitat is better than nothing, but that solution 
does not address the fundamental issues.  The economic system maintains high 
returns for thief-like investors while working people and the Spotted Owl 
are expendable and exploitable pawns for controlled growth.  Any economic 
system that would compulsively push a species to the brink of extinction is 
a system that must be attacked and destroyed.  Any government, like the BC 
Liberals, that facilitates the devastation of our natural environment is a 
government that can no longer serve any logical purpose.  The hunger of the 
system is like a beast that eats its way into catastrophic circumstances.  
The beast must be stopped before it eats us all.

Read Joey Only’s essay Battle For Elk Creek, War For Cheam.  It is an 
account of the threat to Cheam First Nation, and violent actions by 
Cattermole loggers against protesters:
<http://www.vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2003/10/77113.php>
For more on Elk Creek visit: www.elkcreekaction.org 
<http://www.elkcreekaction.org>

contact Joey Only at: garlicbobcat (at) resist.ca
(anti-copyrite Nov.24th 2003)

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