| Popis: |
Plum Creek Timber Company is one of the largest private owners of forested habitat occupied by the northern spotted owl in the United States. At the time of federal listing in 1990, 107 spotted owl territories had been located near the company's property intermingled with other lands in the Central Cascade Mountains of Washington. To facilitate the management of the spotted owls and address the economic impacts that the federal listing of the species had created, Plum Creek, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service began the development of a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), a process under the Endangered Species Act, which allows private landowners to obtain a federal permit to incidentally “take” a listed species or its habitat under otherwise lawful activities in accordance with an approved plan that specifies actions to mitigate and minimize the anticipated impact on the listed species. The HCP area is 169,510 hectares in size, including 49,239 hectares of Plum Creek property. The HCP, which was approved by the Services in June 1996, is a 50-year plan, which addresses the habitat, needs of 315 vertebrate species, including the northern spotted owl. |
