This handsome medium-sized owl, with its unusual dark-brown eyes, relies on old-growth forests to roost, nest and forage. In Canada, the endangered northern spotted owl is found only in the southwestern corner of mainland British Columbia.
Because of many decades of unsustainable destructive logging of old-growth forests, currently biologists have been able to locate only one wild born spotted owl, an adult female residing in the unceded territory of the Nlaka'pamux community of Spô’zêm (Spuzzum) First Nation, located in the Fraser Canyon area near Hope BC. On February 25, 2021 the BC government announced a one year deferral of logging in Spô’zêm Nation territory - home to Canada's last surviving spotted owl still living in the wild. Since that time the logging deferral has been extended into 2025. The historic population of spotted owls is estimated to have been 500 pairs.
Because of dangerously low numbers of northern spotted owls in Canada, the Wilderness Committee is demanding:
- Permanent strong protection for the valleys that surround the last wild spotted owl.
- Protection of all remaining critical spotted owl forest habitat throughout their Canadian range in southwest BC.
- Enough protected forest habitat to accommodate a self sustaining population of 250 spotted owls
- Proper funding and staffing for BC's Northern Spotted Owl Breeding Program
- BC to release every year into protected critical habitat captive-bred spotted owls with enough on-the-ground staff support to allow for owl survival.
- The recovery of spotted owls to 250 birds in a self sustaining population where captive release is no longer needed.
Learn more
PDF Map Showing Spotted Owl Proposed Critical Habitat and Overlapping Approved, Pending and Proposed Logging Cut Blocks
In July 2024, the federal government finally released a proposed amended recovery strategy that identified and mapped Spotted Owl critical habitat. Below is a map showing "Core" critical habitat from the recovery strategy that needs to be permanently protected to ensure the survival and recovery of the spotted owl. In addition, the map below shows 519 provincially approved, pending and proposed logging cut blocks (with a total area of 3,224 hectares) from Dec. 4, 2023 to Dec. 3, 2024 that are overlapping with critical habitat.
ArcGIS Online Web Map of Spotted Owl Critical Habitat, Protection and Logging
This map shows several map layers that you can turn on and off (with the eye icon beside each layer), including:
Federal Government (Environment and Climate Change Canada) Proposed Critical Habitat (as appearing in the July 2024 Proposed Amended Spotted Owl Recovery Strategy), Wildlife Habitat Areas (No Harvest Spotted Owl "Long Term Habitat Areas" and Conditional Harvest Spotted Owl "Managed Forest Areas"), existing Parks and Protected Areas; recreation trails and sites; approved, pending approval and proposed cut blocks, and logging company tenures and operating areas; private lands, First Nations treaty and reserve lands and some provincial government spotted owl management SBOT layers.
To get more information on individual layers, in the legend beside the layer click on the "three dot" icon, and then click on the "i" information icon in the drop down list, which will open another browser tab. You can click on individual features on most map layers on map to get more information on those features in a pop up window that will appear. You can change the basemap imagery/background map with the button in top right of map.
Full Size Web Map
