{"id":639,"date":"2025-06-10T11:01:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T11:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sewellconsultancy.com\/?p=639"},"modified":"2025-06-16T03:07:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T03:07:25","slug":"must-we-slaughter-18000-barred-owls-to-save-the-spotted-owl-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sewellconsultancy.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/10\/must-we-slaughter-18000-barred-owls-to-save-the-spotted-owl-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Must we slaughter 18,000 barred owls to save the spotted owl? (Opinion)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barred owls, with their vivid brown stripes, are acting like bullies of the forest in the Northwest, driving their smaller cousins, the northern spotted owl, to the brink of extinction. Once barred owls start colonizing old-growth forests, rare spotted owls no longer have a home.<\/p>\n

The survival of spotted owls meant a lot to me as a young environmental activist. In 1985, I spent days living on a plywood platform perched high in the canopy of an Oregon Douglas fir. The tree was majestic, over eight feet wide at the base — just one of many in a stand hundreds of years old.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a certain age you might recall the banners: GIVE A HOOT: SAVE THE SPOTTED OWL. They spawned a bumper sticker in what became a culture war: SAVE A LOGGER, EAT A SPOTTED OWL.<\/p>\n

My 40-year career as a conservationist began in those Northwest timber wars as I joined other tree-sitters and protesters to halt the logging of gigantic old-growth trees.<\/p>\n

The threatened survival of federally endangered spotted owls in the region\u2019s forests became the central issue in a storm of litigation. In 1994, the dispute finally led to President Clinton protecting 24 million acres of ancient forest housing the owls. But even then, barred owls were invading from Eastern states, stealing a prey base of small animals from the spotted owls. The numbers of spotted owls continued to plummet.<\/p>\n

Last August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service signed off on a controversial Barred Owl Management Strategy<\/a> that relies on hiring sharpshooters to kill up to 16,000 barred owls a year at a cost of up to $12 million. The plan aims to give spotted owls a chance to survive.<\/p>\n

During the 1990s, President Clinton\u2019s sweeping forest plan to save the owls by saving old-growth forests was among many highlights of my conservation career. But I also recall numerous lows-lows. The first was when I learned that loggers had chain sawed that huge tree I\u2019d occupied.<\/p>\n

Mostly, I\u2019ve managed to be hopeful about conservation no matter the grief from accelerating losses on the ground. But here\u2019s the dilemma: How are we to process the steady decline of the spotted owl? Conservationists won an epic battle against logging because of these owls, only to see their habitat becoming the arena for an owl-on-owl smackdown.<\/p>\n

Must the solution be that we shoot one species to save another? The plan is based on research overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whose experiments showed that removing barred owls in limited areas could help spotted owls survive.<\/p>\n

When the federal agency\u2019s plan was announced, animal welfare interests sued to block it, arguing that it would fail. They also claimed the costs would add up to more than $1 billion over three decades. Officials at the agency say they will start small and demonstrate their plan\u2019s effectiveness and affordability.<\/p>\n

Mixed feelings like mine are shared. Madeleine Cameron, who was part of a University of Wisconsin team involved in experimental removals of barred owls, told the Seattle Times: \u201cI personally did not decide to do owl work thinking this is where my career would be. You get there through watching all your favorite owls disappear.\u201d Meanwhile, some biologists foresee adaptation and hybridization. \u201cSparred\u201d owls already exist in the Northwest, filling the niche of displaced spotted owls.<\/p>\n