This article offers a corollary for other industries environmentalists are trying to destroy, like energy and fishing.
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/two-words-explain-californias-wildfire-woes-spotted-owl/Two Words Explain California’s Wildfire Woes: Spotted OwlThe owl became a cause célèbre for people who had never seen one and never would
By Kevin Nelson, October 13, 2022 10:41 am
Some things in life are hard to understand and explain. The theory of relativity, for example, or the origins of black holes. Other things are easy to grasp, however.
Such as: California’s wildfire woes. In the past five years summer and fall firestorms have killed dozens of people, wiped out homes, businesses and entire communities, torched millions of acres of forestlands, caused billions in property losses, and swept away untold numbers of animals and wildlife.
The cause of all this wreckage is easy to pinpoint. It’s simple as two words: spotted owl.
In the 1980s California was a superstar timber producer. Nearly 150 sawmills churned out four billion board feet of lumber every year, leading the nation. Working-stiff loggers had money in their pockets, their families thrived, and little lumber towns tucked away in the north woods boomed.
Enter the spotted owl. A night-flying denizen of the deep woods, the owl became a cause célèbre for people who had never seen one and never would. When the government moved to protect it as a threatened species, it ushered in an ugly slugfest pitting environmentalists, California state officials and the U.S. Forest Service against loggers and the timber industry.
The fight was over protecting the owl’s habitat. After lawsuits, protests and even violence, the environmentalists won.
And, in the process, delivered a death blow to an entire way of life. Sawmills shut down, loggers lost their jobs, and those little backwoods lumber towns went from boom to 1930s Depression-era bust. ...