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TUCSON, Ariz. — Changes in Forest Service rules designed to protect an endangered bird and its prey have brought objections from conservationists worried they may lead to increased logging including areas in New Mexico.

Federal officials say the concerns are overblown.

Critics of the new regional rules say more aggressive thinning in the southwest's national forests could result, leaving more open ground and fewer shaded areas needed for the northern goshawk bird and its prey to nest. The complaints have delayed one forest-thinning project in Arizona.

The 1996 northern goshawk guidelines govern Arizona and New Mexico forests and are designed to protect the goshawk and its food from the effects of overlogging. They set minimum requirements for canopy cover and required a percentage of the forest to remain in a mature and old-growth condition, said Taylor McKinnon, a Center for Biological Diversity spokesman in Flagstaff, Ariz.

The goshawk guidelines affect most of the ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests in the southwest. Arizona and New Mexico have the largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest in North America - with an estimated 3 million acres in Arizona and 2.8 million in New Mexico.

"Our concern is that the new regionwide guidelines are going to result in a sharp increase in mature and old growth forest logging," McKinnon said.

Such logging projects are common across the West, aimed at lessening the risks of devastating wildfires by cutting small trees to reduce dense stands. But the new guidelines have wildlife advocates worried that larger stands may be targeted.

But the U.S. Forest Service - which agreed to postpone a thinning project planned on the Coconino near Flagstaff after the center and Arizona Game and Fish objected - says the concerns are misguided and without foundation.

The service merely developed a "set of implementation guides" for its 1996 northern goshawk guidelines, said Pat Jackson, the Forest Service's southwest regional appeals and litigation director in Albuquerque, N.M.

"They carry no official weight with the agency... This implementation guide does not have official sanction of the agency."

Ed Martin, vice president of forestry for Southwest Forest Products, said he thinks the concerns raised are needless. Southwest currently has four contracts to cut 8,850 acres on the Coconino. Five other contracts held by others will thin another 5,000 acres.

"I think there is a lot of good research and study that went into the guidelines," Martin said. "I think they've done their homework. I think it's a good balance for all the stakeholders."