Opinion ID: 902303
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Biological Assessment

Text: On February 15, 2008, the Forest Service prepared a biological assessment analyzing the potential effects of the Mudflow Project on the Owl and its critical habitat. The BA determined that the Mudflow Project area contains 510 acres of suitable nesting/roosting habitat and 5,125 acres of suitable foraging habitat, but that no Owls occupied the Project area.4 To evaluate whether a forest management project, such as the Mudflow Project, is likely to adversely affect critical habitat, the Forest Service applies a three-tier classification system for “estimated degree of change”: degraded, downgraded, and removed. “Degraded” means the treatment will reduce habitat elements, “but not to the degree where existing habitat function is changed.” “Downgraded” habitat will not function in the capacity that existed before treatment, but retains some habitat function. “Removed” means habitat elements will be reduced to the degree that it no longer functions as habitat for the species. 4 The BA was prepared before the 2008 habitat rule and thus applied the 1992 standard. FW S issued an updated concurrence in 2012 to account for revisions to the critical habitat designation for the Owl. 8 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V . U.S. FOREST SERV . According to the BA, the short-term effects of the proposed treatments would “temporarily ‘degrade’ but . . . not ‘remove’” foraging habitat in designated critical habitat within the Project area. But in the long-term, Project treatments would improve forest health and resistance to insects and disease, increase tree diameter by reducing intertree competition, and encourage understory reproduction. In sum, the BA determined that the Project would “temporarily degrade[]” a total of 1,719 acres of the Owl’s suitable foraging habitat within the Project area. No nesting/roosting areas would be degraded, and no part of the Owl’s critical habitat would be “downgraded” or “removed.” The BA concluded that the Mudflow Project “may affect, but is not likely to adversely affect,”5 the Owl or its critical habitat.