In separate letters sent Tuesday to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, 113 scientists and 23 lawmakers said the draft plan to protect the northern spotted owl distorted scientific studies to justify logging in old-growth forests, and alleged that it had been "politicized" by Interior Department officials.

"There's very clear evidence that this recovery plan was polluted by tainted politics," Jay Inslee, a Democratic lawmaker from Washington state, one of three states concerned by the plan, told AFP.

"At hearings in the Natural Resources Committee, we found abundant evidence that there had been pressure to remove protections for the ecosystems," said Inslee, who authored the lawmakers' letter.

"There is also abundant evidence of an ugly taint of politics in this, coming right down from the White House, ordering (the authors of the plan) to weaken owl protection in order to increase timber harvests.

"This president just doesn't get it," Inslee said, accusing President George W. Bush of ignoring environmental issues and laws on several occasions.

In the letter the lawmakers alleged that "the recovery plan may have been tampered with by high-ranking officials within the Administration, including former Interior Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Julie MacDonald who was a member of the 'Washington Oversight Committee' that apparently instructed the recovery team to develop options not based on sound science."

No officials were immediately available for comment at the Interior Department or its Fish and Wildlife Services agency, which drafted the plan.

The spotted owl was listed as a threatened species in 1990 and its "critical habitat," which is rich with timber resources, was designated by the Fish and Wildlife Service for the bird two years later.

The forests of the Pacific Northwest are among the last remaining old-growth forests in North America, and are the primary habitat of the northern spotted owl.

The recovery plan for the owl shifts the focus away from the need to preserve the forest ecosystem in California, Oregon and Washington, in which the animal lives, to actions that reduce the threat posed by another bird, the barred owl.

In a separate letter sent to Kempthorne on Tuesday, independent scientists expressed concern that the plan has largely ignored findings made by wildlife, ecology and environmental specialists.

"We are greatly concerned that, according to scientific peer review recently conducted by owl experts and three of the nation's leading scientific societies, much of this science was ignored in the draft recovery plan for the northern spotted owl," the scientists' letter said.

"Based on our understanding of the ecology of the spotted owl, we see no scientific basis for reducing habitat protections for the owl," it said.

"Scientists are usually reluctant to get involved in these battles but they were so offended by this one that we had this tidal wave of support from the scientific community to go back and redo this report, based on science," Inslee said.

The draft recovery plan for the owl, released earlier this year, proposes slashing by up to one-third the amount of old-growth forests -- unmanaged forests which are more than 200 years old -- which are currently protected for the owl and hundreds of other species, Inslee said in a statement.

"The administration is trying to open up old growth to logging under the guise of protecting the spotted owl," Inslee said.

"We've made progress on reaching consensus in the northwest to try to increase protection for the ecosystem while allowing harvests in appropriate locations. This would cut off those negotiations at the ankle and ignite timber wars in the northwest again," he warned.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has agreed to a request by the Natural Resources Committee to look into political meddling in the spotted owl recovery plan as well as other projects involving endangered species.

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