Gruesome Proposal Shoots Dead Half-Million Barred Owls in Pacific Northwest
The US Fish and Wildlife Service wants to enlist shotgun-wielding assassins to kill more than a half million barred owls in the Pacific Northwest. The object: to save the habitat for the invasive birds’ endangered cousins, the northern spotted owl.
“This action is necessary to support the survival of the threatened northern spotted owl and avoid substantial impacts to the California spotted owl populations from barred owl competition,” according to the USFWS’s environmental impact statement.
The gruesome proposal is intended to stem the ever-expanding range of the barred owls, which are native to the East Coast but have encroached on habitats in the Northwest since the 1950s. The invaders are more aggressive and omnivorous predators than the native owls, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The plan to whack hundreds of thousands of one species in order to save another might be necessary, but it’s also fraught with potential for tragedy. Do we have confidence that deputized civilians with shotguns will be able to tell the species apart? The birds’ physiognomies are not so very different, nor are their hoots.
“It is critical to realize that individual spotted owls do not always use the complete standard hoot,” according to the USFWS proposal. “If there is any question as to whether the bird may be a spotted owl, no removal should occur.”
The USFWS has looked into other ways to control the invasives’ population, including sterilization and nonlethal removal, but these measures are impractical. Even if you could capture and cage enough barred owls to make a difference, what would you do with them? “We don’t want to release these birds elsewhere in the West and spread the impact of this nonnative predator to other native species,” agency owl-management lead Robin Bown tells Oregon Public Broadcasting. “They prey on a large number of species that have a potential to have a pretty big impact on those species.”
The lethal remedy isn’t a done deal yet, as the USFWS proposal remains in draft form and is open for public comment through January 16. Information available here.
Photo credit: Todd Sonflieth / Oregon Public Broadcasting
