Photo: Recently felled timber in area set aside for the protection of spotted owl habitat in the Chilliwack Valley

Despite protests from local residents and environmental groups, and the discovery of a spotted owl, logging began Wednesday in a Wildlife Habitat Area (WHA) set aside for the protection of the birds in the Chilliwack River Valley.

The WHA near Chilliwack Lake was one of many created in 2006 by the provincial government for the protection of owls.

But last October, the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations cancelled an order that promised logging would not occur within the WHA, and replaced it with one allowing logging.

That included 13 cutblocks given to Tamihi Logging where up to 142 hectares will be cut.

Since then, residents of the Chilliwack River Valley and the Wilderness Committee, have protested the decision.

NDP MP Peter Julian, who spent his summers in the Post Creek area from 1957 to the 1970s, came and toured the area in December.

Forestry roads had been under construction for weeks, but on Tuesday residents of the Post Creek area reported fallers arriving in the area, and on Wednesday cutting began.

“We are outraged that the provincial government has allowed this logging to go ahead today,” said Gwen Barlee, policy director with the Wilderness Committee. “It’s just way beyond irresponsible to be logging the habitat of spotted owl, one of Canada’s most endangered species.

There are now believed to be less than 10 spotted owls living in the wild in BC – the only place in which they are found in Canada.

Local residents and supporters have established a vigil directly adjacent to the site of the cutblocks, in order to observe and protest the logging, according to the Wilderness Committee.

A spotted owl was identified in a nest three kilometres from the the WHA cutblocks, and Glen Thompson of the Friends of the Chilliwack River Valley asked the ministry if the owl was tagged and if ministry staff would shut down operations if needed.

"Yes, the owl has a radio device for monitoring which we have been doing since before the road construction started," replied Allan Johnsrude, Chilliwack District Manager in an email. "The owl is not closer to the forest operations. The Ministry will continue to monitor the owl's movement during harvest operations and potentially suspend operations if necessary."

Thompson said he wondered if the exemption would have been signed if the owl had been identified before hand.

"They want to log so badly they will have a guy in a truck monitoring the owl while they log," he said. "This is not a species protection best practice. This is greed."