The Owl and the Forest

The spotted owl, once famously referred to by the first President Bush as “that little furry-feathery guy,” was not exactly a popular little guy among angry timber workers in the Pacific Northwest. Listed as an endangered species in 1990, the owl triggered a series of court cases that halted logging in millions of acres of old-growth forests and led President Clinton to put those acres permanently off limits. For a bird that few people have ever actually seen, the spotted owl has done as much as any other creature to save the American landscape.