B.C. government logs critical spotted owl habitat despite recovery plans
Since 2023, the province has issued permits to log 2,350 hectares of federally designated critical habitat for endangered northern spotted owls.
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British Columbia is logging thousands of hectares of federally designated critical habitat for the endangered northern spotted owl — even as the federal government and the province claim commitment to the species' recovery.
Fire Lake, 75 kilometres north of Metro Vancouver near Garibaldi Park, sits within a wildlife habitat area designated for the spotted owl, plus federally designated critical habitat essential for the species' recovery and survival in Canada. The forest contains 1,000-year-old yellow cedars and Douglas firs. Five years ago, the B.C. government itself earmarked the Fire Lake forest as a priority old-growth logging deferral area.
Yet last fall, BC Timber Sales, a government agency, auctioned 70 hectares of the forest on the west and north shores of Fire Lake for clearcut logging. Wilderness Committee protected-areas campaigner Joe Foy documented recent logging at the site, finding four of 10 auctioned areas already clear-cut and a fifth partially logged. The remaining five areas — including those within the wildlife habitat area — were still intact.
"The province is logging their own wildlife habitat area for spotted owls," Foy said, calling the situation "an emergency." "It's really maddening, but they're getting away with it."
Fire Lake is not isolated. When Foy and a colleague combed through B.C. government websites and maps, they discovered the province has issued permits to log 2,350 hectares of spotted owl critical habitat in southwest B.C. since 2023 — the year Ottawa released proposed critical habitat maps as part of a federal recovery effort. The total area equals roughly six Stanley Parks.
"As soon as that habitat was identified, B.C. rushed in and started logging," Foy said.
Spotted owls recently went extinct in Canada's wild following decades of industrial logging in old-growth forests in southwest B.C. Canada's last wild spotted owl, a female, nested in the Spuzzum Valley near the Fraser Canyon. She disappeared in 2023 and was presumed dead. Thousands of spotted owls still live in Washington state, Oregon and northern California, where they are listed as threatened with extinction.
The birds now face competition from barred owls, a larger, more aggressive species that has spread across the continent, aided by landscape changes caused by humans, and flourishes in B.C.
Has the federal government formally challenged the logging permits under the Species at Risk Act?
What consultation, if any, occurred with First Nations on whose traditional territories this critical habitat sits?
We'll update this story as answers emerge.
The facts
How many hectares of spotted owl critical habitat has B.C. permitted to be logged since 2023?
British Columbia has issued permits to log 2,350 hectares of federally designated critical habitat for endangered northern spotted owls since 2023, an area roughly equivalent to six Stanley Parks.
Where is Fire Lake and what happened to its forest?
Fire Lake is located 75 kilometres north of Metro Vancouver near Garibaldi Park. BC Timber Sales auctioned 70 hectares of old-growth forest there for clearcut logging, with at least four of the ten auctioned areas already clear-cut and a fifth partially logged as of the article's reporting.
When did Canada's last wild spotted owl disappear?
Canada's last wild spotted owl, a female nesting in the Spuzzum Valley near the Fraser Canyon, disappeared in 2023 and was presumed dead.
