Integrating Scientific Methods with Habitat Conservation Planning: Reserve Design for Northern Spotted Owls

Abstract

To meet the requirements of Congressional legislation mandating the production of a "scientifically credible" conservation strategy for the threatened Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), the Interagency Spotted Owl Scientific Committee employed scientific methods to design a habitat reserve system. Information on the current and historical distributions of the owl and its habitats was reviewed in light of economic, political, and legal constraints; results were used to develop a preliminary reserve system of habitat "polygons." A map representing these polygons and their attendant properties served as a set of hypotheses that were tested. Statistical analyses of empirical data, predictions from ecological theory, predictions from population dynamics models, and inferences drawn from studies of related species were used to test properties of the preliminary map, including the number and sizes of habitat conservation areas (HCAs), their distribution, configuration, and spacing, and the nature of the landscape matrix between HCAs. Conclusions that failed to confirm specific map properties were used to refine the reserve system, a process that continued iteratively until all relevant data had been examined and all map properties had been tested. This conservation planning process has proven to be credible, repeatable, and scientifically defendable, and should serve as a model for wildlife management, endangered species recovery, and national forest planning.