256 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
tures is more vulnerable than the northern spotted owl, a bird so docile it
will descend from the safety of its lofty bough to take a mouse from the
hand of a man.”^8
Some environmentalists said the owl was the proverbial canary in the
coal mine, an indicator species. Others called it the tip of an iceberg. Andy
Stahl of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund admitted it was heaven sent.
“The Northern Spotted Owl is the wildlife species of choice to act as a
surrogate for old-growth protection,” he told an environmental law con-
ference in Eugene, Ore., in 1988. “I’ve often thought that thank goodness
the spotted owl evolved in the Pacific Northwest, for if it hadn’t, we’d have
to genetically engineer it,” he chuckled. The videotape of that speech be-
came Exhibit A in timber country.^9
“I’d been Slade’s natural resources/environment staffer for six weeks
when the owl controversy went national,” recalls J. Vander Stoep, who was
fresh out of law school. Although only 33, he had spent six years in the
Washington Legislature. “I wish I’d have known what I was getting into,”
he told McGavick, only half-joking. A few months later, McGavick gave
him his report card: “You’re my ticket back to Seattle!” By 1991, Vander
Stoep was Gorton’s chief of staff.
Gorton meets with Glen Ramiskey, left, of the Longshore Union and other
Grays Harbor labor leaders during the spotted owl controversy in 1991.
Brian DalBalcon/The Daily World