The federal government has proposed a plan to shoot 500,000 barred owls to save another owl species that inhabits California. Foes say it's a reckless plan.

A federal government plan for hunters to kill thousands of invasive owls to protect the rapidly declining northern spotted owl has ruffled the feathers of dozens of animal advocacy groups.

On Monday, a coalition of 75 animal rights and wildlife protection organizations sent a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland asking her to scrap what they describe as a “reckless plan” to wipe out half a million barred owls in West Coast states over the next three decades.

The letter, spearheaded by the Animal Wellness Action group and the Center for a Humane Economy, lambastes the plan for being unworkable and short-sighted, arguing that it will lead to the wrong owls being shot and disruption to nesting behavior.

“Implementing a decades-long plan to unleash untold numbers of ‘hunters’ in sensitive forest ecosystems is a case of single-species myopia regarding wildlife control,” states the letter, signed by Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, and Scott Edwards, general counsel for the Center for a Humane Economy.

Federal wildlife officials believe the action is necessary to control the population of the barred owl — which they consider invasive — and give the threatened northern spotted owls a fighting chance on their home turf.

  • anon6789
    26•6 months ago

    Decades of attempt to preserve Spotted Owls in the US and Canada have failed. Any attempts to curtail the human behavior making the situation worse have either been, at best, ignored by people or the governments themselves. At its worst, it’s lead to hate and violence.

    The Barred Owl is much more adaptable than the Spotted Owl. At this point trying to stop the Barred Owl overtaking the Spotted Owl feels like trying hold back water.

    One thing that could be a success in a less orthodox way is allowing the hybridization of the owls. Barred and Spotted Owls can mate successfully. The current problem with this approach is that hybrids all also killed in these programs.

    They are not so similar visually, but since both are active at night, it makes positive identification more difficult when they would actually be hunted.

    Many species of owls are in danger due to endless destruction of old growth forest necessary for owls. Owls do not build nests and require trees that have been around for about 100 years to be suitable to have natural cavities for them to nest and for the forest to have enough wildlife for them to eat. But this is also the most valuable timber, and the loss of this habitat has been the root of this problem.

    -From your friends at [email protected]

    EDIT: I just read this article again after putting it in one of the links above. If anyone is interested in the topic of this post, I highly recommend reading this article. It touches a lot on what not just the owls, but mankind is losing by us failing to care for these creatures.

    The Guardian: ‘All I see are ghosts’: fear and fury as the last spotted owl in Canada fights for survival

    Only one female remains in the Canadian wilderness, a symbol of the country’s inability to save a species on the verge of destruction as politicians dither and the logging continues.

    “My mom, she’d tell us stories about them, how they’d grab us if we didn’t behave or if we were out too late,” remembers Hobart, now chief of the Spô’zêm First Nation. “When you hear the owls, you better be inside … I remember the owls and I remember the fear.”

    It has been decades since he heard the haunting barks and trills of the diminutive owl, but with the terror gone, they remind him of the warm summer nights of his youth.

    “When I tell my own kids that story, it feels different. Because they’ve never heard the sounds of the owl at night. I don’t know if they ever will.”