The controversy pitted individual loggers and small sawmill owners against environmentalists. Bumper stickers reading "Kill a Spotted Owl—Save a Logger" and "I Like Spotted Owls—Fried" appeared to support the loggers. Plastic spotted owls were hung in effigy in Oregon sawmills. The logging industry, in response to continued bad publicity, started the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. While timber interests and conservatives have cited the northern spotted owl as an example of excessive or misguided environmental protection, many environmentalists view the owl as an "indicator species," or "canary in a coal mine" whose preservation has created protection for an entire threatened ecosystem.