In an effort to save the endangered barred owl, U.S. wildlife officials are moving ahead with a controversial plan to send trained shooters into the dense forests of the West Coast to cull about 500,000 of the birds that are crowding out their smaller relatives.
The strategy, announced Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and obtained advance details by The Associated Press, is aimed at boosting dwindling barred owl populations in Oregon, Washington and California.
According to documents released by the agency, up to 450,000 barred owls are scheduled to be shot over a 30-year period because the eastern American barred owls have invaded the West Coast habitats of two other species of owls, the northern spotted owl and the California spotted owl. The smaller barred owls are unable to compete for food and habitat with the invaders.
Previous efforts to save the barred owls focused on protecting their forested habitat, sparking fierce battles over logging but helping to slow the birds’ decline, but officials say the recent surge in barred owl numbers is undermining those efforts.
“Without aggressive management of barred owls, despite decades of concerted conservation efforts, the species is likely to become extinct throughout all or a significant portion of its range,” said Kesina Lee, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Supervisor.
The idea of killing one bird species to save another has divided wildlife activists and conservationists. Some reluctantly accepted the proposal after the draft was released last year, while others have called it reckless and a deviation from necessary forest protections.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service is going from being a protector of wildlife to being a persecutor,” said Wayne Pacelle, of the animal rights group Animal Wellness Action, who predicted the plan would fail because the agency would be powerless to stop more barred owls from migrating into the areas where the kills were made.
Officials said shooting will likely begin next spring.
The barred owls are lured by shooters who use a megaphone to broadcast recorded owl calls, then they are shot with a shotgun and the carcasses are buried on the spot.
Researchers have already killed barred owls in some owl habitats, removing about 4,500 since 2009, said Robin Vaughn, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s barred owl program lead, including in California’s Sierra Nevada region, where the birds recently arrived and officials hope to stop the population from becoming established.
In other areas where barred owls are more established, officials are trying to reduce their numbers but acknowledge that shooting the birds is unlikely to eliminate them completely.
No public hunting of barred owls is permitted. Wildlife services designate government agencies, landowners, Native American tribes or corporations to carry out the kills. Shooters must provide proof of training or experience in owl identification and firearms skills.
A final environmental study on the proposal is due to be released in the coming days, with a 30-day comment period before a final decision is made.
This comes after decades of conflict between conservationists and timber companies that are logging vast tracts of old-growth forest where the spotted owls live.
Early efforts to save the birds resulted in a logging ban in the 1990s that upset the timber industry and its political allies in Congress.
But ever since barred owls first started showing up on the West Coast decades ago, barred owl populations have been declining.
Opponents argue that mass killing of barred owls would cause severe disruption to forest ecosystems and risk accidentally shooting other species, including barred owls. They also dispute the idea that barred owls should not live on the West Coast, arguing that their range expansion is a natural ecological phenomenon.
Researchers say barred owls migrated west along one of two routes: either across the Great Plains, where trees planted by settlers provided a foothold into new areas, or through Canada’s boreal forests, where rising temperatures due to climate change have made the region more hospitable.
Groups that support killing barn owls to save the spotted owl include the American Bird Conservancy and other conservation groups.
“Our organizations fully support the removal of the barred owl as a necessary measure, while also strengthening habitat protections for remaining mature and old-growth forests,” the organizations said in comments to a draft proposal to remove the owl released last year.
The spotted owl is federally protected as endangered, and federal officials decided in 2020 that its continued population declines merited upgrading to the more severe “threatened” status, but the Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the decision at the time, saying other species should take priority.
The California spotted owl was proposed for federal protection last year, with a decision still pending.
Under former President Donald Trump’s administration, government officials stripped habitat protections for the spotted owl at the urging of the timber industry. The Interior Department said political appointees under Trump had justified weakening the protections based on flawed science, and habitat protections were reinstated under President Joe Biden.
