The spotted owl was just the horse the environmentalists rode in on. If it hadn't been the owl it would have been the murrelet or the elderberry beetle or who knows what. The owl is a cute cuddly little creature that tugged at the heart strings of people who should have known better.
The people whose true agenda is to keep anyone, anywhere, from ever cutting another tree are the ones to blame... along with a few grandstanding politicians who jumped on the band wagon figuring it would get them some votes.
It's all good and well to joke about the owl and what's happened...it shows that our sense of humor is still intact I guess. We need it, too.
But I've seen lives completely changed, and not for the better. I've seen little towns whose main source of income was logging and sawmilling just damn near dry up and blow away. Tourism never seems to reach these places to any degree. There's only so many service industry minimum wage jobs to go around.
I've seen third and fourth generation loggers and mill people whose whole life was blown apart by the things the owl brought with it. I know, personally, of two suicides brought on by the despair of a middle aged logger who has had the rug pulled out from under him and can't provide for his family any more. If you're a logger and that's all you know how to do and you're not allowed to do it anymore it can eat away at you 'til nothing's left.
I don't know of anything good that came from the spotted owl. I wish I did.
I guess this is kind of grim and depressing...but I submit it without apology.
