Rutzick said he did not think any state court had ruled previously that property owners could seek government compensation for economic harm caused by the Endangered Species Act. The state ruling does not affect the strict protection for spotted owls now in place on federal land. Further, federal officials said Friday that if the ruling led Oregon to relax protection for owls, they would step in to enforce provisions of the Endangered Species Act. Our preference is to have the states implement regulations to protect the species. But if they do not, we have an obligation to do it ourselves.
States customarily enforce provisions of the federal Endangered Species Act on private lands.
Still, Smitch said, the ruling has ominous implications for plants and animals. Oregon officials were scrambling Friday to understand the repercussions of Thursday's decision. Charlie Stone, director of the state Department of Forestry's forest practices program, said he thought the state has a good chance of defeating Boise Cascade when the matter comes to trial. But he said state attorneys do not know yet how the ruling could affect instances in which environmental rules bring economic harm to property owners. In August 1990, two months after the federal government listed the spotted owl as a threatened species, the state banned logging in a 70-acre zone around spotted owl nests on private land.