Several regional and national media outlets today chronicle the challenges facing the spotted owl, well known to watchers of California politics.  Government and environmental experts have proposed a 30-year plan to protect the critters to the tune of $198 million.  Currently, logging on much of the old-growth populated federal land in the West and Northwest is on hold due to a federal court ruling.

The species' survival faces two challenges: habitat and competition invasive species.  While the habitat issue can be managed, litigated and regulated through a variety of government and legal means, the growing threat, according to a report in the Oregonian and elsewhere, is the rapid westward migration of the barred owls.  This latter species was once only native to the northeast U.S. but poses a direct threat to the spotted variety.  Scientists are even considering killing some of the barred owls in order to protect spotted owl habitat.  One media report noted "such control measures may be costly and futile because the expansion of the barred owl's range may be due to a natural phenomenon."

Perhaps the biggest challenge is this fact is lightly, if at all, recorded in much of the press coverage of the Bush Administration's efforts to resolve the long-running dispute over appropriate logging in U.S. forests.  Here's what the U.T. reported, without mention of the other threat facing the species: nature itself.