To slow the effects of climate change, conserve biodiversity, and meet the sustainable development goals, replanting trees is vital. Restored forests store carbon within the forest's soil, shrubs, and trees. Mixed forests are especially effective at carbon storage, as different species with complementary traits can increase overall carbon storage.
New trees also cannot support wildlife the same as old trees. Animals like owls need large, old, dead trees with large cavities, as they cannot make their own nests. Forests need to develop for almost 200 years for those conditions to exist. It’s also needs to be speciea of trees that will support the lives of prey animals as well. Without time and balance, the forest is essentially dead for anything but logging. Save old trees, cut new trees!
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I’m 100% in favor of preserving old-growth forests, but would it be effective to build habitats specificially for owls, distributed throughout both new and old-growth forests?
It’s mainly the small and medium adaptable owls that are still doing well that will use nest boxes. Owl boxes are also decently large since owls stay in the nest until essentially they are full grown and 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6m) off the ground.
Large owls don’t cavity nest and just need lots of tall dense trees with a thriving population of small mammals.
Birds of prey will also learn where nesting boxes are and take advantage of that. I was at a bird banding event the other day and they said they had to move their capture nets every season because raptors will learn where they are and pick birds out of it.
There are just many things that are hard or expensive to recreate by hand.
Thanks, that makes sense. So the only workable solution for the largest owl species is to not ruin their environment in the first place, and for smaller species building habitats is a risky proposition. Hopefully we’re successful in preserving what remains of our primordial forest cover then.
Exactly. And it really stinks when governments sell out and let them die out even under emergency situations.
British Columbia’s Last Spotted Owl
And in the US, from NPS
Many owl species are at risk but there is a very long battle between Spotted Owls specifically and the timber industry going back decades, so there is a lot of documentation about them.
There’s hate merch and everything going back near 40 years.
Guardian: All I See are Ghosts
Thank you for sharing that. I don’t know who it was, but some months back I was introduced to a particular document describing creative tactics for protecting old-growth forests. All I can say is, I’m glad there are at least people giving anti-environmentalists hell, and making it a war to achieve the destruction demanded by short-sighted profit-seeking.
I suppose it’s the same with every facet of life. Protecting what we have is more difficult than finding ways to tear it down. Like how software security is a constant game of whack-a-mole, fixing security vulnerabilities as they’re found.
Yes, we’re capable of great good, but also great bad, especially in groups. Someone is always going to want to take everything for themselves.
Keep learning and stay alert to what’s going on around you!
There are basically no forests that old, how are there still owls?
It’s still there. It’s just getting further and further away. It’s very valuable to the lumber industry.
Many owls live very different lives than each other. Large owls don’t migrate and will spend their lives a few miles from where they were born. If that home disappears, they don’t know where else to live or find food.
Owls that migrate come from up north in the wilderness where they don’t really even know what people are, like the Saw Whet Owls. They’re used to moving and finding new food, and are much smaller.
Some like Barn Owls and Barred Owls are aggressive, highly adaptable, can live along side people, and can kill most other owls for territory. This along with human activity is what is driving the Spotted Owls in US and Canada to extinction, since multiple species are trying to kill them.
So we still have old growth forest and owls, but neither the amount or diversity of either we used to.