A northern spotted owl takes flight after a mouse jumps off a stick in the Deschutes National Forest near Camp Sherman, Oregon. Implementing a plan to deploy trained marksmen to kill almost a half-million barred owls is crowding out their smaller cousins.
Tang Ryan/Associated Press
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Tang Ryan/Associated Press
In an effort to save endangered spotted owls, U.S. wildlife officials are implementing a controversial plan to deploy trained shooters into the dense forests of the West Coast to kill the nearly 500,000 spotted owls that are crowding out their cousins.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a strategy Wednesday aimed at shoring up declining spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington and California. The Associated Press obtained the details in advance.
Documents released by the agency show that as many as 450,000 barred owls will be shot over three decades after the birds from the eastern United States invaded the west coast territories of two owl species, the northern spotted owl and the California spotted owl. Smaller spotted owls cannot compete with intruders, which have large numbers of nests and require less living space than spotted owls.
Past efforts to save spotted owls have focused on protecting the forests they live in, which has sparked fierce battles over logging but has also helped slow the bird’s decline. Officials say the proliferation of barred owls in recent years is undermining earlier efforts.
“Without active management of the barred owl, despite decades of cooperative conservation efforts, all or most of the northern spotted owl’s habitat will be lost,” said Kessina Lee, director of the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Service. Extinction is still possible.
The idea of killing one bird species to save another has divided wildlife advocates and conservationists. It’s reminiscent of past government efforts to save West Coast salmon by killing sea lions and cormorants that prey on fish, and to protect warblers by killing cowbirds that lay eggs in their nests.
Some advocates reluctantly accepted the barred owl removal strategy; others said it was a reckless diversion from necessary forest protections.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service is going from protector of wildlife to persecutor of wildlife,” said Wayne Pacelle, founder of the advocacy group Animal Health Action. He predicted the program would fail because the agency would be unable to prevent more banned owls from migrating to areas where other owls were being killed.
Officials said the shootings could begin next spring. Use a loudspeaker to lure the barred owl by playing a recorded owl call, then shoot it with a shotgun. The bodies will be buried on site.
Robin Bown, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s spotted owl strategy, said researchers have culled the birds in some spotted owl habitats, removing about 4,500 since 2009. Those targets include spotted owls in California’s Sierra Nevada region, where the animals have recently arrived and officials hope to halt population growth.
In other areas where barred owls are more common, officials aim to reduce barred owl populations but acknowledge that archer owls are unlikely to completely eradicate them.
Supporters include the American Bird Conservancy and other conservation groups.
American Bird Conservancy Vice President Steve Holmer said the barred owl does not belong in the West. Killing them would be unfortunate, he added, but reducing their numbers could allow them to live with spotted owls in the long term.
“As old forests are allowed to regrow, hopefully coexistence is possible and maybe we don’t need to do as much” filming, Holmer said.
Officials say the cull will reduce the population of North American barred owls by less than 1% per year. In contrast, the spotted owl may become extinct if the problem cannot be solved.
Because barred owls are aggressive hunters, eradicating them could also help other West Coast species they prey on, such as salamanders and crayfish, said Tom Wheeler, director of the Conservation Information Center, a California-based environmental group.
Public hunting of barred owls is not allowed. Wildlife services will designate government agencies, landowners, American Indian tribes or corporations to carry out the kill. Shooters must provide documentation of training or experience in owl identification and firearms skills.
A final environmental study report on the proposal will be released in the coming days, and there will be a 30-day comment period before a final decision is made.
The Barred Owl Project was developed after decades of conflict between conservationists and timber companies that cleared vast tracts of old-growth forest where the spotted owl lived.
Early efforts to save the birds culminated in logging bans in the 1990s, which angered the timber industry and its political backers in Congress.
However, after barred owls began appearing on the West Coast decades ago, spotted owl populations continued to decline. Katherine Fitzgerald, director of the Wildlife Service’s Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Program, said at least half of the spotted owls throughout the region have disappeared, with declines of 75 percent or more in some study areas.
Opponents say a large-scale hunt for barred owls would severely damage forest ecosystems and could lead to other species, including spotted owls, being mistakenly shot. They also challenge the idea that barred owls don’t belong on the West Coast, describing their range expansion as a natural ecological phenomenon.
Researchers say barred owls migrate west via one of two routes: through the Great Plains, where settlers planted trees that gave them a foothold in new areas; or through Canada’s boreal forests, where climate change Causing temperatures to rise, these forests become more habitable.
The northern spotted owl is federally protected as a threatened species. Federal officials determined in 2020 that their continued decline warranted an upgrade to a more serious “endangered” status. But the Fish and Wildlife Service declined to do so at the time, saying other species took priority.
Last year, the California spotted owl was proposed to receive federal protection. Awaiting decision.
Under former President Donald Trump, government officials rolled back habitat protections for spotted owls at the behest of the timber industry. The measures were restored under President Joe Biden after the Interior Department said political appointees under Trump relied on faulty science to justify their weakening of protections.
