From: laelth@yabbs
To: Patton@yabbs
Subject: Owls?
Date: Fri Aug 12 00:49:14 1994

Hey, it's not about the owls!
People in the environmental science biz. call the spotted owl a
"bellweather species."  They use it to test the general health of 
the entire ecosystem, that being Northwest American Forests.  They
mesure how well the owls are faring in order to determine how well
the entire ecosystem is doing.  It doesn't matter if the owls can 
survive in an urban setting.  If the owls are dying in the forest, then
the thousands and millions of other species that live in the forest
are dying too.  Granted, a few species may even profit from human
destruction of the ecosystem, but the logic is that if the owls are
dying, then the entire system is thrown out of whack by human
intervention.  The species in the forest took millions of years to evolve.
Some trees live for over a thousand years.  Human greed, stupidity, and
short-term thinking cannot justify the destruction of an entire
ecosystem which has as much right to exist as we do.

-laelth