"As the species hangs on to survival in the country, the federal government will defend its role in delaying emergency measures that could have helped the raptor from disappearing in B.C.’s heavily logged forests".
"As Canada’s last wild spotted owl goes missing, a legal case that could change Ottawa’s approach to critically endangered species is poised to begin today on the seventh floor of a Vancouver courtroom. The case sets the environmental group Wilderness Committee against the federal government, in a showdown that tests the urgency with which Canada’s Species at Risk Act must be applied to protect wildlife at risk of extinction. Watching closely from the sidelines is the BC NDP government, which for months has lobbied Ottawa to stay out of provincial affairs while it continues to approve industrial logging in the spotted owl’s old-growth habitat.
The environmental law charity Ecojustice, acting for the Wilderness Committee, will ask a federal court judge to consider the question: did Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault act unlawfully when he delayed — for eight months — asking the federal cabinet to issue an emergency order to prevent the extinction of the spotted owl from Canada?
“That is too, too long to wait for anything that you would call an emergency,” Joe Foy, protected areas campaigner for the Wilderness Committee, told The Narwhal. “And when you’re down to one last wild-born spotted owl, I don’t know how else you could define it but an emergency.”"
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