Elegy for the Owl--a poem

Cry foul. Cry foul.
Howl . . . howl . . . howl . . . .
The U.S. Forest Service
is not taking care
of the California Spotted Owl.
Bird lovers are crying.
The owls are all dying.
But where? Where? Tell me where.
In the redwood forests everywhere.
Big money is mowing the redwoods low.
The poor wee birdie has nowhere to go.
You’ll be taken aback
by the ferocity of the attack.
Please join me and picket
on this very sticky wicket.
The owl. The Auk. The dodo too.
Extinct. Departed. Adios. Toodaloo.


The poem was written several years ago by Leonard Irving, a San Francisco poet. He originally titled it, “A Premature Elegy for the California Spotted Owl.” A few days ago an article in the Oakland Tribune reported the unpoetic reality facing another California bird, the Western Burrowing Owl.

Here’s the Tribune article:


CRITICS SAY STATE BURIED REPORT ABOUT THREATENED OWL

Fish and Game went against biologists
by Douglas Fischer, Oakland Tribune

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - Environmentalists on Monday charged the state Department of Fish and Game with suppressing an internal report favoring immediate protections for the western burrowing owl, saying the information provided instead was "fraught with inaccuracies."

The state Fish and Game Commission voted 4-0 in December 2003 against giving the western burrowing owl temporary, year-long status as a "candidate species," which extends the same protections to animals as those listed under the California Endangered Species Act.

Activists with the Center for Biological Diversity, the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and the Defenders of Wildlife said the agency's negative recommendation came only after Davis administration appointees overruled career biologists.

"People higher up didn't like the result," said Jeff Miller of the Center for Biological Diversity. "So they took it, they gave it to the legal team, they gave it to people who knew nothing about the burrowing owl, and they worked it until they got what they wanted.

"The two reports are completely different animals."

An appeal for a full investigation by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his new Fish and Game director is planned, Miller added.

A department spokesman described the document as an early draft developed -- then discarded -- in agency's normal course of generating a recommendation to the rule-making commission. Commissioners knew staff biologists were not of one mind on the matter, said spokesman Steve Martarano.

"They were fully aware of that," he said. "We freely admitted that we agonized over the decision, which indicates it was a tough decision."

Commissioners also knew of the allegedly suppressed report, said Sam Schuchat, who sits on the panel. And the panel heard plenty from those favoring protections during the three-day hearing last year.

"We get what we get from the department, and then we decide based on everything," he said. "I'm comfortable with that vote."

The commission has overridden staff recommendations before. At that very meeting, for instance, the panel voted against the agency's wishes and banned the sale as pets of genetically altered glow-in-the-dark fish.

Pete Bloom, a zoologist who has tracked burrowing owls throughout Southern California since 1970, says biased information or not, the burrowing owl didn't get a fair shake when the commission denied the temporary protections.

"If we get on it quickly, we could reverse some of this (decline)," he said. "The Fish and Game biologists did do the right thing, and did accurately assess the animal's status and recommend that it be listed."

The owl is a small, ground-based bird that, in California, relies upon burrows dug by ground squirrels for nests. Once one of the most common birds in California, its numbers have declined steadily since at least the 1940s and precipitously since the 1980s, according to conservationists.

In the Bay Area, encroaching development has completely or nearly eliminated them from Sonoma, Napa, Marin, western Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. A 1993 estimate by the Audubon Society pegged the number of breeding pairs in the Bay Area at less than 170, about 2 percent of the state's population.

The commission, meeting in Long Beach this week, must ratify its December vote -- a technical matter unlikely to change the outcome. But it will set the stage for the next phase.

"If they do certify their decision on Thursday, we are going to sue them," Miller said. "It's a given."