Posted on 12/25/2023 5:40:52 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
The survival of one owl species hinges on the demise of another.
That’s what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service argues in its proposal to allow the agency to shoot hundreds of thousands of barred owls over the next 30 years in West Coast forests. The service says the barred owl, which is not native to the region, is crowding out the spotted owl, a close genetic relative.
Without action against the barred owls, service biologists say the spotted owl could disappear from parts of Washington and Oregon within a few years and eventually go extinct.
The proposal is the latest in a series of efforts to save the spotted owl, whose decline became a rallying point for environmentalists opposed to logging in the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s.
Human influence — as European settlers spread west — likely caused the barred owl to colonize the Pacific Northwest. Now, the proposal raises questions about how far people should go to save a species and the costs of righting a historic ecological wrong.
“It’s not the barred owls’ fault. It’s our fault for bringing them out here. It’s not the spotted owls’ fault either,” said Robin Brown, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who is the agency’s barred owl strategy lead. “The species’ future is extinction if we don’t manage barred owls. The writing is on the wall.”
The agency’s proposal, which calls for a total of more than 470,000 barred owls to be “lethally removed” — killed with shotguns — remains in draft form and is open for public comment through Jan. 16.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Thought spotted owl was already killed by man and now I hear it’s alive and being killed of by its cousin
Hummm
Yeah, they’ll never shoot the wrong ones..... /s
Like an explosion of rodents.
This bad act is so crazy.
To protect useful government employees,,,,,
Clicking down into the article, some of the FWS staff have an apparent policy bias by describing the Barred Owl population as “exploding” or that lethal population control is needed to correct an “unnatural situation”.
Those phrases or terms are to me signs of policy bias. It has become more of an issue the past 30-40 years.
Spotted owls have been going extinct since the 1980’s but just don’t seem to be cooperating with environmentalists’ plan.
This decision really hurts: Ooooowl! 😉
Once again, climate/species doomsters desiring to play god.
One of the most distasteful duties as a Coast Guardsman was reading the whale advisories on the broadcasts, and logging the whale sighting flights. 99% of folks don’t give a rip, and no one was listening. It was more like on the air propaganda.
Note: This is the ONLY distasteful duty I can recall. Most recollections are entirely positive.
Just the term “Government Biologist” gives me the creeps.
Hi, we’re Government Biologists and we’re here to help.
Umm........No!
If I remember correctly from my reading of the book Northwest Passage sixty three years ago, Rogers’ Rangers found owl was mostly feathers very little meat and the rest mostly “Hoot”.
Save the owls... ban biologists!
A small tactical nuclear weapon detonated in select portions of the forest would work too.
I must not remember it very well. I’ve completely forgotten the chapter about the settlers bringing along their flocks of owls.
“It’s okay when we do it”
I live in this area. The Spotted Owl nonsense devastated my county, and the 2 other counties that make up the Olympic Peninsula.
Besides this Owl situation the commie bastards in Congress have been trying for 13-15 years to lock up and keep people out of 125,000 more acres of Olympic National Forest land. We’ve successfully fought these pukes, even the lead sponsor is quitting congress this term.
Mismanaged fisheries, mismanaged forest policy, Owl mismanagement has devastated the economies and broke multigenerational families that made their livelihoods from the woods. Every last bit of the devastation can be laid at the feet of the dimocRAT party and the City/State region we call Pugetopolis and their insane liberal constituency that dictate how the state is governed.
Gov ‘experts’ aren’t - though just ask them and they’ll tell you they are. Their level of hubris is gargantuan, so they don’t believe in letting nature take its course.
No truer words have been spoke about the state. Pugetopolis a 3 county area in which Seattle resides, are responsible for all the insane liberal policies, like this. Most of the Pugetopolis residents have never been out here, they look over at us with telescopes and binoculars from their elitist condos and Space Needle Observatory.
Now, they (Pugetopolis Pukes) think how cool it would be to reintroduce Wolves and introduce Grizzly Bears into the woods over here, “we might be able to hear the Wolf’s howl from our condo!” Insane, and uncaring just like you said.
Those morons should put out of business and left with nothing but the knowledge of how it feels to want.
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