To save spotted owls, US officials plan mass killing of another owl species in West Coast forests

By MATTHEW BROWN | Associated Press

To save the imperiled spotted owl from potential extinction, U.S. wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls that are crowding out their smaller cousins.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday was expected to release its final plan to prop up declining spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington state and California. The Associated Press obtained details in advance.

The plan calls for killing up to 470,000 barred owls over three decades after the birds from the eastern U.S. encroached into the territory of two West Coast owls: northern spotted owls and California spotted owls. The smaller spotted owls have been unable to compete for food and habitat with the invaders.

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Past efforts to save spotted owls focused on protecting the forests where they live. But the proliferation of barred owls in recent years is undermining that earlier work, officials said.

“We’re at a crossroads. We have the science that indicates what we need to do to conserve the spotted owls, and that requires that we take action on the barred owls,” said Bridget Moran, a deputy state supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon.

The notion of killing one bird species to save another has divided wildlife advocates and conservationists. Some grudgingly accepted the proposal after a draft version was announced last year; others denounced it as reckless and a diversion from needed forest preservation.

FILE – Wildlife technician Jordan Hazan records data in a lab from a male barred owl he shot earlier in the night, Oct. 24, 2018, in Corvallis, Ore. U.S. wildlife officials want to kill hundreds of thousands of barred owls in coming decades as part of a controversial plan to help spotted owl populations. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

A spotted owl, left, and a barred owl specimen are held side-by-side by Jack Dumbacher, curator of the California Academy of Sciences Department of Ornithology and Mammalogy, in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016. Studies are being conducted to understand how the invasive East Coast barred owl is impacting west coast populations of the threatened spotted owl. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

A barred owl was spotted in Bolinas on Sept. 17 by Lucas Stephenson and photographed by his father Mark Stephenson, president of the Napa-Solano Audubon Society. Barred owls are eastern birds that expanded their range westward into the Pacific Northwest and more recently into California. Because they outcompete the native endangered northern spotted owl, wildlife experts are recommending their elimination. (Photo by Mark Stephenson)

A Northern Spotted Owl flies after an elusive mouse jumping off the end of a stick in the Deschutes National Forest near Camp Sherman, Ore., on May 8, 2003. (AP Photo/Don Ryan, File)

This June 1995 file photo shows a Northern Spotted owl taken …read more

Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment