The Phantom Hoot: The interspecies conversation that saved Pacific Northwest old growth

摘要

IN 1969, AN UNDERGRAD working a summer job in Oregon's Willamette National Forest heard a strange hooting coming from the woods-sort of like a dog's bark. He made the same sound back. The creature responded. After a few nights of this back-and-forth, a pair of owls flew down and landed in front of his cabin. The student, Eric Forsman, learned that Strix occidentalis-the spotted owl-was an enigma. There was no scientific record of where it nested, what it ate, or really anything about it. He began driving down old logging roads, calling into the forest. Sometimes he would look up and see one following him through the woods as though it was checking up on him. His 1975 master's thesis noted that he found the owls almost exclusively in old-growth coniferous forests.