Save Spotted Owls At Any Cost?

By Steve Wilent, For The Mountain Times

In my August 2023 column, I reported that the main threats to the iconic northern spotted owl are wildfire and barred owls. Wildfire destroys spotted owl habitat (or at least changes it dramatically for a century or two). And the size and severity of wildfires is trending up. In 2020 alone, the Labor Day fires burned about 360,000 acres of spotted owl nesting and roosting habitat in Oregon. That’s more than 560 square miles — an area nearly four times the size of Portland.

Barred owls, cousins to the spotted owl, are larger, more aggressive, and more willing and able to use habitats other than the old growth forests that spotted owls prefer. In 2021, researchers with Oregon State University and other institutions reported that, “despite more than 30 years of protection, northern spotted owl populations have continued to decline, with steepest declines observed in the past 10 years. Long-term monitoring of spotted owl populations across the species’ range identified rapid increases in the population of invasive barred owls as a primary reason for those declines.”

Although barred owls are native to North America, some people considered them an invasive species, since over the last century or so they have migrated from their original range in the eastern US and Canada to the western US and British Columbia. 

From 2009 to 2019, the US Fish & Wildlife Service conducted an experiment to investigate the effect of barred owl removal on spotted owl populations. In four study areas in older forests in Washington, Oregon, and California, hunters were hired to shoot barred owls. Not surprisingly, the agency found that removing barred owls had a positive effect on survival of spotted owls. 

Now, as reported by The Oregonian in June, a “plan to kill 450,000 barred owls on [the] West Coast [is] apparently underway.” The killing of one species of owl to save another is “controversial.”

And some folks say it isn’t likely to work.

A June 8 article in the Tacoma News Tribune included comments from Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and author of “The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them – The Humane Society CEO's Moving Exploration of Animal Protection.” Pacelle noted that barred owls already live in North America and that range expansion is normal. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“All species are range-expanding,” Pacelle told The News Tribune. “And birds have greater range expansion potential because they fly. Moving from the Dakotas to Washington state is not that far.”

Pacelle says barred owls are adaptive just like coyotes and deer, but northern spotted owls are not. He also thinks that culling hundreds of thousands of barred owls in a 30-year span is futile.

“If you shoot barred owls out of a particular area, you will have the juveniles move in and take it back over. So it’ll just be a treadmill. They’re going to start shooting owls, and they’re never going to be able to stop. And they’re not going to reduce the densities and pressure on the spotted owls. We probably have three to four million barred owls in the United States. You shoot a small percentage of them, and they’ll fill the gap very quickly.”

Is killing one species that threatens another with extinction justified? In this case, the answer is complicated, in part because the northern spotted owl is listed under the Endangered Species Act, and the barred owl isn’t, so there is a legal rationale for taking action. Also, wildfire doesn’t discriminate: it kills both species of owl. Reducing the size and severity of wildfires is another avenue, and one that isn’t so controversial. 

This isn’t the first time the killing of one species to benefit another has been proposed. A 2014 article in The New York Times reported that double-crested cormorants on East Sand Island, in the Columbia River near Astoria, have feasted on young salmon and steelhead in recent decades. Double-crested cormorants are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

“The salmon here in the Columbia River, nearly driven to extinction by hydroelectric dams a quarter century ago, have been increasing in number — a fact not lost on the birds that like to eat them. These now flock by the thousands each spring to the river’s mouth, where the birds have their young, and gorge at leisure,” noted the Times. “As a result, those charged with nursing the salmon back to robust health have a new plan to protect them: shoot the birds.”

According to the Bird Alliance of Oregon, efforts to reduce predation by cormorants included shooting nearly 11,000 birds and destroying more than 26,000 active cormorant nests over a four year period. The results may have had a positive effect on fish, but the cormorant population suffered to a much greater degree. See tinyurl.com/4s7v8fvv.

As I wrote back in 2023, I’ve seen barred owls in our area a few times, including on my own property near Lolo Pass Road. They’re magnificent critters. Adults stand 16 to 20 inches tall and have wingspans of 39 to 43 inches.

My take: Let nature take its course. If the barred owls oust the spotted owls, so be it. 

However, if shooting barred owls must take place, maybe we should ask ICE — US Immigration and Customs Enforcement — for help. They’re pretty good at shooting innocent people, why not innocent owls who immigrated from out east?

Have a question about barred or spotted owls? Know what you call a barred owl with no feathers? Let me know. Email: SWilent@gmail.com.