Northern Spotted Owl Surveys in Redwood national and State Parks 2013-2014 Report

Schmidt, Kristin

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Surveys of known northern spotted owl activity centers in Redwood National and State Parks (RNSP or “parks”) continued in 2013-2014, at a reduced level. “Compliance” surveys also were conducted for proposed forest restoration and trail projects and at annual routine maintenance sites. In recent years, as more and more spotted owl territories appear to have been abandoned, likely due to the rapid increase of barred owls within spotted owl territories, the spotted owl monitoring program in the parks has tapered off. Many of the historic activity centers and surrounding home ranges are in locations that are now difficult to survey. The parks’ occupancy data should be considered incomplete; we cannot definitively state how many historic spotted owl sites are occupied or unoccupied. However, based on many consecutive years of negative survey results at most historic sites and the persistent presence of barred owls in most of the historic sites, we believe it is likely that spotted owl occupancy rates within RNSP are currently very low. Seven spotted owl activity centers (ACs) were surveyed in 2013 and 5 of the 7 were surveyed in 2014 to assess occupancy. Of the 7 ACs surveyed in 2013, one was occupied by a nonreproductive pair of spotted owls and a single female spotted owl was present at another AC. Of the 5 ACs surveyed in 2014 (all of which also were surveyed in 2013), one was occupied by a single male spotted owl. Two ACs were occupied by barred owls. There were 7 incidental detections of 9 barred owls in 2013 and 10 incidental detections of 13 barred owls in 2014. Barred owls also were detected in association with protocol surveys at 2 ACs surveyed and at 2 project areas. In total, there were 40 barred owls associated with 23 separate sites detected between 2013 and 2014. In contrast, 4 spotted owls were detected at 3 separate sites between 2013 and 2014. Bio-acoustic recording devices, Song Meters, were placed within 4 spotted owl territories in 2013 and within 5 territories in 2014. Barred owls were recorded at all but one site where devices were deployed. Spotted owls were recorded at 2 sites with Song Meters. In 2014 we completed entry of a backlog of survey data, collected in 1996-1999, into the parks’ STRIX database, along with spotted owl and barred owl records recently discovered in the parks’ general Wildlife Observation database, some dating back to the 1970s. This resulted in the discovery of 8 spotted owl territories that we had no knowledge of prior to this effort.