The Northern Spotted Owl is a nocturnal bird with a 2-foot wingspan and a weight of about two pounds. The owl lives in forests between British Columbia and San Francisco and prefers old-growth forests. Old-growth forests are more than 200 years old. These forests have a complex ecosystem with larger trees than younger forests. The canopy of these larger trees provides the owl with protection from predators. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The owl and their safe house face danger from the Pacific Northwest lumber industry. The logging industry prefers to clear old forests due to the size of the trees. The forests are on federal land, and the U.S. Forest Service holds auctions of tree cutting rights to loggers. This logging reduced the amount of old-growth forest from 94 million acres to 30 million acres and reduced the number of breeding pairs of spotted owls to about 1,500. Environmentalists trying to save old-growth forest used the spotted owl to stop deforestation. They successfully petitioned the government to place the spotted owl on the endangered species list. Once the owl was considered endangered, it became illegal to harass, harm, or kill it, and critical habitats were protected regardless of economic or political consequences. The Fish and Wildlife Service has banned logging within 70 acres of a known spotted owl nest. This has significantly reduced the amount of logging on federal land. Logging fell from 10.6 billion board feet in 1990 to less than 1 billion in 1992. Small-town economies have been devastated by declining lumber sales, sawmills across the region have closed, and unemployment has soared. increased up to 20%. Sawmills such as Ochoco Lumbermill in Prineville, Oregon, closed. In 1994, the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) allowed logging in 80 percent of an area of ​​24 million people. in 1990 still only 10% of the amount came from lumber. Environmentalists continued to fight further logging, and the logging industry still lost 10,000 jobs. The fight between environmentalists and loggers has ended in stalemate, while hundreds of lawsuits have clogged the judicial system. This was essentially a victory for environmentalists because the lawsuits bind the courts and prevent loggers from cutting down old forests. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay The government's role in all of this was appropriate because the land was owned by the federal government. Owls are the property of the people and the government must protect them. The government is responsible for promoting trade but not for creating trade. The loss of jobs was an unfortunate consequence. The environmentalist represented corporate interests interfering with the government's sale of old-growth timber to logging companies. This case is an example of how the government can devastate an industry with regulations.