Droppings Give the Lowdown On Stress in the Spotted Owl

摘要

Sitting in the woods and waiting for an owl to poop might seem like an unrewarding research assignment. But such field work has enabled researchers to show, for the first time, that disturbing a wild bird's habitat by logging can measurably increase the animal's stress. This preliminary finding--fiercely challenged by at least one biologist--has raised new doubts about the adequacy of governmental efforts to protect the northern spotted owl, a threatened species that lives in old-growth forests in the n6rthwestern United States.