Northern Spotted Owl - Conservation Status

Conservation Status

There are approximately three to five thousand pairs remaining in the wild, mostly in the states of Washington, Oregon and California.

The worldwide IUCN Red List of Threatened Species status for the Spotted Owl species is Near Threatened with a decreasing population trend. As the IUCN Red List does not track subspecies, this status is applied to species across its whole range in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

The Canadian population, declared endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada under the 2002 Species at Risk Act, now numbers less than 100 breeding pairs of birds. In British Columbia, Canada, only six pairs are known in the wild, down from historic numbers of 500 pairs.

The Northern Spotted Owl was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act throughout its range of northern California, Oregon and Washington by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service on June 23, 1990 citing loss of old-growth habitat as the primary threat. The USFWS previously reviewed the status of the Northern Spotted Owl in 1982, 1987 and 1989 but found it did not warrant listing as either threatened or endangered. Logging in national forests containing the Northern Spotted Owl was stopped by court order in 1991.