Federal agency plans to cull 450,000 barred owls to boost another species
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is keeping its aim trained on the barred owl, hoping an effort to cull the species could save its close genetic relative.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is keeping its aim trained on the barred owl, hoping an effort to cull the species could save its close genetic relative.
In a final plan released Wednesday, the agency is proposing to kill as many as 450,000 barred owls over 30 years, despite opposition from some animal welfare activists and Washington state’s top public lands official.
The plan, released in a final environmental impact statement, or EIS, is designed to prevent the extinction of the spotted owl, a threatened species that is being crowded out of its native territory by the slightly larger and faster-reproducing barred owl.
"We're at a crossroads, and we’ve now developed the science and analyzed everything," said Bridget Moran, a deputy state supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Oregon. "We have to manage the barred owl. There is time to protect spotted owls, but that window is closing."
The barred owl, common in the Eastern U.S., is not native to the West Coast. It most likely arrived only because European settlers spread west. The species was first discovered in spotted owl territory in Washington state in the 1970s.
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