In the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest, the northern spotted owl, a rare and vulnerable subspecies of spotted owl, is being forced out of its limited habitat by its larger, more ferocious cousin from the northeast. For more than half a century, opportunistic barred owls have invaded spotted owl turf, competing with local residents for food and space, outnumbering them and out-breeding them, and inevitably displacing them from nesting sites. The spotted owl has also emerged as a threat to the California spotted owl, a closely related subspecies that lives in the Sierra Nevada and mountains of coastal California and Southern California.
Pushed into marginal areas and vulnerable to wildfires, northern spotted owl populations have declined by up to 80 percent over the past two decades. Only 3,000 birds remain on federal lands, compared to 11,000 in 1993. The northern spotted owl has disappeared from the wild in British Columbia. Only one female remains. If this trend continues, the northern spotted owl could become the first owl subspecies to become extinct in the United States.
In a last-ditch effort to rescue the northern spotted owl from oblivion and protect California's spotted owl population, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is raising an alarming number of spotted owls across an 11- to 14-million-acre area in Washington, Oregon. I suggested killing him. Northern California is invaded by barred owls, which officials consider an invasive species. The lethal management plan calls for up to 500,000 barred owls to be removed over the next 30 years, or 30 percent of the population over that period. Owls are dispatched using the cheapest and most efficient methods, including capturing and euthanizing using a large-caliber shotgun with a night scope.
Carla Bloom, executive director of the International Owl Center in Minnesota, is conflicted about the idea of killing one species to save another. “The concept of shooting birds is terrible. No one wants that,” she said. “But none of the alternatives have worked, and no other options are viable at this time. Extinction is forever.”
Bob Salinger, executive director of the Oregon Bird Conservancy, agreed, but stressed that culling must complement restoration and preservation of what little old-growth forest remains. “The science clearly shows that if the northern spotted owl is to have any chance of survival, we need to protect and expand its habitat and remove some levels of barred owls,” he says.
The agency's plan, outlined last fall in a draft report assessing environmental impacts and scheduled for a final review this summer, has been criticized by conservationists who say it will benefit both species and the proposed proposal. The scale, scope and schedule of the project are at odds with animal advocates who believe it is unsustainable. .
Last month, a coalition of 75 wildlife conservation and animal welfare organizations sent a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland stating that a permanent culling plan is needed to maintain owl numbers, they say. It called for an end to the “extremely reckless behavior” of the government. Checking in progress. Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and an author of the statement, said the government is “increasing competition and social interactions among North American species, including those that have expanded their ranges in part as a result of human perturbation.” It is dangerous to start managing the effects.” Environmental”. “Due to its price tag and broad ambitions, it is unclear how this will pan out politically,” he said in his email.
Pacelle questions whether the barred owl, which is endemic to North America, really meets the criteria for an invasive species. “This 'invasive' language is familiar to me in the current political debate,” he said. “Demonizing immigrants makes tough policy options much easier from a moral standpoint.”
The signatories say the current predicament warrants non-lethal control and that the agency's approach will result in the wrong owls being shot and thousands of eagles, hawks and other creatures dying from lead poisoning. He claimed to be connected. “The implementation of a decades-long plan to unleash millions of ‘hunters’ into sensitive forest ecosystems is an example of single-species myopia when it comes to wildlife management,” the letter states.
Rocky Gutierrez, a wildlife ecologist who has studied spotted owls since 1980, called the letter disingenuous. “It's clear the authors either didn't understand the plan or didn't read it carefully,” he said. “Secretary Haaland will not be swayed by their arguments because they are often inaccurate or unscientific.”
Dr. Gutierrez said the government draft explicitly bans lead and other toxic ammunition, and that authorities will recruit highly trained professionals, who must take courses and pass exams, rather than hunters. He pointed out that it was a plan.
Referring to the results of a five-year field experiment published in 2021, Dr. Gutierrez said, “Training and rigorous procedures have minimized the possibility of false positives, so no incidents of false positives have occurred to date.'' I haven't.'' The reviewed studies have proven the effectiveness of this removal method. ”
Ms Bloom from the International Owl Center added: This business plan is no exception. ”
noticeable decline
The Fish and Wildlife Service has been trying to save the spotted owl for decades. The effort became a cause in the 1980s, as environmentalists saw it as a way to force the U.S. government to drastically reduce logging of federal forests in the Northwest. This bird relies on old-growth forests for survival, preferring towering trees such as the Douglas fir, which typically takes him 150 to 200 years to mature.
The barred owl was listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, over enthusiastic opposition from the timber industry. Dead owls were nailed to road signs and “owl fricassee” playfully appeared on restaurant menus as loggers staged protests. Four years later, the Northwest Forest Program established a new management framework for his 24 million acres of federal forest land in Washington, Oregon, and California within the northern spotted owl's range. Despite rapid logging reductions, the bird's population continued to decline, especially in areas where barred owls were most concentrated.
Barred owls began heading west in the early 1900s, when European settlers changed the Midwest landscape from grasslands to woodlands. Perhaps driven by warming trends in the boreal forests of eastern Canada and northern Minnesota, where spotted owls are abundant, the bird spread throughout the Great Plains, and by 1943, the northern spotted owl's range, British Columbia, But it has started to be seen.
“When spotted owls were listed in 1990, we knew they could be a potential threat,” said David Wiens, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “But at the time, we knew very little about barred owls and had no idea what their population dynamics would be in the Pacific Northwest.”
At first glance, it's easy to mistake codfish for codfish. Both have round heads without tufts, teddy bear-like eyes, and mottled brown and white bodies. They can mate to produce chicks called spurred owls. However, they have different habitat requirements. Up to four pairs of spotted owls can occupy the 3 to 12 square miles of space required by one spotted owl, and spotted owls actively defend their terrain. “The closer the spotted owl is to the barred owl, the less likely it is that the spotted owl will produce offspring,” Wiens says. Barred owls also give birth to four times as many offspring.
Spotted owls are very picky eaters. In California, they only eat flying squirrels and wall rats. Mr Bloom said: “Blue-throated owls eat just about anything. This is a huge blow to the western screech owl, rare reptiles and amphibians, and has cascading effects on the ecosystem.”
“Nobody wants it.”
Some animal activists suggest that instead of shooting great owls, the Fish and Wildlife Service should try to stop them from breeding. But Eric Forsman, a former Forest Service biologist whose research influenced the Northwest Forest Plan, countered that all other options were already on the table. “Half measures such as sterilization and egg removal will not be possible at the scale needed to reduce the population,” he said.
Another thorny issue is migration, which risks introducing new parasites and diseases from the West into the spotted owl's historic range. “If people complained about the cost and feasibility of removing 15,000 birds a year, the price of relocation would probably be cardiac arrest,” Dr. Gutierrez said. “Besides it would take too long, where would you move the owls? No one wants them.” You could “let nature take its course,” but that path could lead to extinction for spotted owls. Yes, he added.
Three years ago, researchers published the results of a pilot program in which they carefully culled 2,485 barred owls at five study sites along the West Coast. Birds are lured in by recordings of their calls, causing spotted owls in the wild to retreat and remain silent to avoid detection.
Dr. Wiens, who helped run the experiment, said that over five years of culling the spotted owl population had halted the decline in the spotted owl population. In areas where no extermination took place, barred owl populations declined by about 12 percent per year.
Ms Bloom provided a “successful precedent” for the Government's owl scheme. In the 1970s, Fish and Wildlife Service efforts to capture cowbirds in Michigan saved the Kirtland's warbler from extinction, but the warbler population did not increase for nearly 20 years after capture began.
“If we focus on the front lines of the barred owl invasion in the few remaining areas in California, Washington and Oregon, and continue to work on an annual or multi-year basis, we have a good chance of success,” Bloom said. “It's there,” he said. She added that the most promising species is the California Spotted Owl, but it hasn't invaded as thoroughly yet.
Dr. Forsman is less optimistic. He worried that control efforts were likely to fail because the spotted owl's range had spread too widely. To him, the proposed policy is a call to action based on the “untestable” hypothesis that humans are responsible for the expansion.
If we were not responsible, would we still demand the same behavior? he wondered. “Or even if we do, is there a point where we simply admit that we've messed things up so badly that we can't go back to the good old days?” he said. “I am torn by this dilemma and find it difficult to be angry with anyone on either side of the debate.”
