OTTAWA — Environmentalists are accusing the federal Conservative government of "hammering the nail into the coffin" of the spotted owl.

The Sierra Club of Canada held a brief ceremony on Parliament Hill on Friday to mourn what it says is the impending loss of the spotted owl from Canada.

The group says Environment Minister Rona Ambrose is refusing to use the Species At Risk Act to protect the owl's habitat from logging in British Columbia.

There are less than two dozen spotted owls left in Canada - all in British Columbia - compared with 200 birds in the early 1990s. There are about 6,100 spotted owls in the western United States.

Scientists have expressed concern the birds will be extinct in Canada within four years if logging in their habitats isn't stopped.

"How low must the spotted owl population go before the minister admits that extirpation is imminent?" asked Stephen Hazell of the Sierra Club.

"Canada's whooping crane population collapsed in the early 20th century, bottoming out at 16 birds in 1941. Is it not embarrassing to all Canadians that the federal government is not prepared to fight for the spotted owl, as Canadian and American governments did for the whooping crane in the midst of the Great Depression and the Second World War?"

The B.C. government has launched a five-year recovery plan that focuses on captive breeding and locating owls in new places. But environmental groups say the plan does not do enough to protect habitat and they want the federal government to step in.

A spokesman for Ambrose said appropriate steps are being taken to protect the owls.

"We've been working with the B.C. government on this file since we came into power and right now we've deemed British Columbia's response is more than adequate," Ryan Sparrow said.

"They've instituted a long-term recovery strategy (and) they've stopped logging in the areas currently occupied by the owls."

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups first petitioned the former Liberal government in 2004, asking it to use the Species At Risk Act to protect spotted owl habitat in B.C. because the province was failing to do so effectively.