Prior to the arrival of Europeans and the beginning of the aggressive logging of California’s ancient forests, the North Coast was covered with a blanket of contiguous ancient redwoods from Big Sur to the Oregon Border. Early settlers reported that a healthy population of "fog larks" was often heard in the forest in the mornings and evenings. These birds are now known as Marbled Murrelets.

Unfortunately, with less than 4% of their nesting habitat remaining, Marbled Murrelets are extremely rare today and continue to decline in number. Despite this fact, Maxxam/Pacific Lumber Company ("PL") has received a permit to kill this endangered bird, and is now logging some of its last remaining habitat.

Murrelets are small, secretive birds that gather fish in the ocean, and nest in the canopy of ancient trees within 50 miles of the coast. Because they are very susceptible to predation, they rely on large, adjoining blocks of intact forests that provide lots of cover. It is a ground-nesting species in Alaska, and it was unknown where Murrelets nested in California until the 1980's. Researchers then discovered that females do not build nests, but lay a single egg directly in a natural depression of a large, moss-covered tree limb. During incubation, the female and male take turns sitting on the egg for 24-hour shifts. Murrelet pairs return to the same forest grove year after year and sometimes nest repeatedly in the same tree. When these trees are cut down, they may never successfully relocate or nest again.

It is estimated that only 5,000 to 7,000 Marbled Murrelets remain in California today, and the vast majority of those are within the very northern portion of the state, in Humboldt and Del Norte counties. 96% of their habitat has been logged in the past 150 years, and the remaining areas have been fragmented, reducing the amount of interior forest. The murrelet population has crashed over 90% and continues to decline rapidly. Scientists believe the population in Humboldt County declined at a rate of up to 13% each year between 1989 and 1996, and that the population in northern California was cut nearly in half during that time.

Much of the remaining Murrelet habitat in California is owned by PL. Since the bird was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1992, and particularly following EPIC’s victory in Marbled Murrelet v. Pacific Lumber, occupied murrelet habitat was off-limits to logging. Unfortunately, as part of the Headwaters Deal, PL received a permit to kill this endangered species and destroy its habitat. Because Marbled Murrelets are critically endangered, no other permit has ever been granted that knowingly allows logging in areas that are actually "occupied" by the bird. PL's permit is the sole exception, and with it PL is allowed to log more than 10,000 acres of unentered and "residual" (previously selectively logged) ancient forests that are suitable for or presently occupied by Marbled Murrelets. Under the permit the Company has already logged hundreds of acres that PL's biologists deemed "low quality" Murrelet habitat, and they are now moving on to the higher-quality occupied stands.

In the last year the California Department of Forestry ("CDF") approved 17 Pacific Lumber logging plans that contain Marbled Murrelet habitat. Twenty-five more are only waiting for the rubber stamp. These plans contain hundreds of ancient redwoods and Douglas firs that are critical to the Murrelet's survival.

Because so much habitat has been destroyed over the past 150 years, and the oldest of the second-growth forests aren’t expected to provide habitat for at least 50-100 years, the Murrelet is facing a critical bottleneck before more nesting areas become available. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Recovery Plan for the Marbled Murrelet stresses that the survival and recovery of the species depends on the protection of all nesting habitat that currently exists. It also stresses that there should be very little loss of forests that could develop into Murrelet habitat over the next 50 to 100 years. A member of the Recovery Team and world-renowned expert on the Murrelet stated:

"It is my opinion that [PL's Habitat Conservation Plan] neither meets its goals nor is consistent with the Recovery Plan. If murrelet populations are currently declining with current amounts of habitat, then the likelihood of it continuing to decline with less habitat is a given…[The HCP] will appreciably reduce the likelihood of recovery of the species in the short term and therefore will not provide for its survival…in the long term" (Kim Nelson, 1998).

CALL TO ACTION FOR THE MURRELET
The Marbled Murrelet is a biological wonder that brings the spirits of the ocean and the ancient redwoods together in California. From faulty surveys to illegal logging of Murrelet habitat, PL has certainly never demonstrated any concern with the fate of this seabird. Now, with numbers at an extremely precarious level and continuing to decline, it is more important than ever for citizens to act to protect the endangered Murrelet from extinction.

EPIC is challenging the Murrelet provisions and other fatally flawed components of the Headwaters Deal in an ongoing lawsuit against PL, CDF and the California Department of Fish and Game. The cost of the administrative record (the documents created during development of the Headwaters Deal upon which the lawsuit must rely) in this lawsuit was record-breaking, and contributions to help keep this case going would be greatly appreciated. Additionally, letters to CDF on numerous logging plans are urgently needed to stress the importance of these forests to the continued survival of the Marbled Murrelet. Please call EPIC's THP Monitoring Project at (707) 839 - 1534 or visit our website at wildcalifornia.org to learn more about these logging plans and how you can help.