U.S. wildlife officials are adopting a controversial plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill nearly half a million barred owls over the next three decades. This drastic measure aims to save the imperiled spotted owl from potential extinction. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s strategy, released Wednesday, is designed to bolster declining spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington state, and California. The Associated Press obtained details in advance.
Documents from the agency reveal that up to 450,000 barred owls would be shot over three decades. These barred owls, originally from the eastern U.S., have encroached into the West Coast territories of the northern spotted owls and California spotted owls. The smaller spotted owls have struggled to compete for food and habitat against these invaders.
Previous efforts to save spotted owls focused on protecting their forest habitats, leading to heated debates over logging but also helping to slow the birds’ decline. However, the recent proliferation of barred owls has undermined these earlier conservation efforts. “Without actively managing barred owls, northern spotted owls will likely go extinct in all or the majority of their range, despite decades of collaborative conservation efforts,” said Kessina Lee, Fish and Wildlife Service Oregon state supervisor.
The idea of killing one bird species to save another has divided wildlife advocates and conservationists. Some have reluctantly accepted the proposal after a draft version was announced last year, while others have condemned it as reckless and a distraction from necessary forest preservation. “The Fish and Wildlife Service is turning from protector of wildlife to persecutor of wildlife,” said Wayne Pacelle of the advocacy group Animal Wellness Action. He predicted the program would fail because the agency wouldn’t be able to prevent more barred owls from migrating into areas where some have been killed.
The shootings are expected to begin next spring. Barred owls would be lured by shooters using megaphones to broadcast recorded owl calls and then shot with shotguns. The carcasses would be buried on site. Barred owls are already being killed by researchers in some spotted owl habitats, with about 4,500 removed since 2009, according to Robin Bown, barred owl strategy leader for the Fish and Wildlife Service. These targeted owls included those in California’s Sierra Nevada region, where the animals have only recently arrived, and officials want to prevent populations from taking hold.
In areas where barred owls are more established, officials aim to reduce their numbers but acknowledge that shooting owls is unlikely to eliminate them entirely. Public hunting of barred owls will not be allowed. The wildlife service will designate government agencies, landowners, American Indian tribes, or companies to carry out the killings. Shooters will need to provide documentation of training or experience in owl identification and firearm skills.
The publication of a final environmental study on the proposal will open a 30-day comment period before a final decision is made. This plan follows decades of conflict between conservationists and timber companies that have cut down vast areas of older forests where spotted owls reside. Early efforts to save the birds culminated in logging bans in the 1990s, which roiled the timber industry and its political supporters in Congress. Despite these efforts, spotted owl populations continued to decline after barred owls began appearing on the West Coast several decades ago.
Opponents argue that the mass killing of barred owls would cause severe disruption to forest ecosystems and could lead to other species, including spotted owls, being mistakenly shot. They also challenge the notion that barred owls don’t belong on the West Coast, characterizing their expanding range as a natural ecological phenomenon. Researchers suggest that barred owls moved westward by one of two routes: across the Great Plains, where trees planted by settlers provided new habitats, or via Canada’s boreal forests, which have become more hospitable due to rising temperatures from climate change.
Supporters of killing barred owls to save spotted owls include the American Bird Conservancy and other conservation groups. “Our organizations stand in full support of barred owl removal as a necessary measure, together with increased habitat protections for all remaining mature and old-growth forests,” these groups said in comments on a draft proposal to remove barred owls released last year.
Northern spotted owls are federally protected as a threatened species. Federal officials determined in 2020 that their continued decline warranted an upgrade to the more critical designation of “endangered.” However, the Fish and Wildlife Service refused to do so at the time, citing other species as a higher priority. California spotted owls were proposed for federal protections last year, and a decision is pending.
Under former President Donald Trump, government officials stripped habitat protections for spotted owls at the behest of the timber industry. These protections were reinstated under President Joe Biden after the Interior Department stated that political appointees under Trump relied on faulty science to justify weakening the protections.
Source: Associated Press
