Plan to Help Rare Owl by Killing Others

Philly.com ^ | 4/27/2007 | TIM FOUGHT

[dirtboy]

PORTLAND, Ore. - A few hundred aggressive cousins of the threatened northern spotted owl may be killed by government agents with shotguns under a proposed federal plan.

The spotted owl was listed as threatened 17 years ago, and its numbers continue to dwindle through much of its range in the Pacific Northwest, federal officials said Thursday in proposing the plan to prevent the species from dying out.

The barred owls have crowded their cousins, the spotted owls, out of prime habitat, sometimes even attacking them. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hopes that thinning the number of barred owls will allow the spotted owl to move back into historic nesting areas and increase its numbers.

[grundle]

the plan to prevent the species from dying out.

The northern spotted owl is not a species. It's a subspecies. The writer and editor don't care about that fact, though.

[wideminded]

I recently moved to a more rural area, though not really out in the country. The other night we could hear two owls hooting at each other for a long time. I’ve never heard that before in my life. It was cool.