Scapegoat Species? A Plan to Shoot 450,000 Barred Owls

On the West Coast, calls from one owl species are dwindling: the famous northern spotted owl.

Designated as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1990, the spotted owl population is at risk of extinction. In an effort to protect the spotted owls, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed the Barred Owl Management Strategy. The proposal is expected to be approved or denied within the next month.

If passed, about 450,000 barred owls would be killed over the next 30 years. Each year about 15,000 barred owls would be shot, less than 0.5% of their total population in North America, according to Fish and Wildlife.

Why? Because barred owls are an invasive species. Native to eastern North America, they began to appear in Washington state in the 1970s. Barred owls were first noted to be displacing spotted owls in the 1980s, according to Robin Bown, the barred owl management strategy lead.

Exactly how many spotted owls remain is unknown, but Fish and Wildlife estimate it to be in the thousands. In many areas, more than 80% of the owl population has been lost over the last 30 years, according to Katherine Fitzgerald, northern spotted owl recovery lead.

Barred owls are generalist predators, meaning they eat a variety of animals. Spotted owls, however, are specialist predators with limited prey, further reduced by the presence of barred owls. Spotted owls mainly eat small mammals such as flying squirrels. Barred owls eat small mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and more. As a result, barred owls are more adaptive.

A closing window

Habitat is also a concern for spotted owls. They are restricted to mature forests with complex canopies where trees range in age and size. Spotted owls are now rare in Washington state. Still, their range spans from southwest British Columbia through the Coast and Cascade Ranges in Washington and Oregon to part of Northern California.

Restoration efforts have been made on federal, state and private lands to help restore spotted owl habitats, according to Bown. But restoration takes time, which wildlife officials said spotted owls don’t have.

“We are absolutely at a crossroads. We have the opportunity to prevent the extinction of the northern spotted owl, we have the science to indicate that this is the right thing to do,” said Bridget Moran, deputy state supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife’s Oregon office. “But that window is closing in time so we feel a need and obligation to act.”

A scapegoat species?

Because the Barred Owl Management Plan would mean killing owls, some people question the reasoning behind it. Joe Meche, a bird photographer and former president of the North Cascades Audubon Society, believes that the barred owl is taking the fall for people. “I see the current situation with the spotted owl, or the barred owl particularly, as being yet another example of finding one species to focus on as a scapegoat for everything we humans have been doing,” Meche said. Oregon scientists recently posted a New York Times op-ed opposing the shooting plans.

One line of thought as to why barred owls have moved west is because of changes caused by humans altering the landscape, allowing for the opening of natural barriers that once kept barred owls separate. 

Paul Bannick is an award-winning author and wildlife photographer who has written four books about owls. Bannick doesn’t like the idea of killing animals but recognizes that northern spotted owls will likely go extinct without intervention.

Bannick would consider supporting the removal of barred owls from a limited number of ranges occupied by spotted owls, as long as results are closely monitored. Doing so would prevent the extinction of spotted owls in the short term and might allow them to adapt, he believes.

But Bannick questions whether the removal of barred owls could be sustained over the long term. “We have an opportunity to save a species. The question is for how long? Is this the Band-Aid or are we going to be able to protect them forever?” Bannick said. “I don’t know that. If we knew that, this would be an easier decision.”

Behind the proposal

To make sure that barred owl removal would help spotted owl populations, Fish and Wildlife ran a large-scale removal experiment, Bown said, that covered four different areas ranging from Washington state to California for four to 10 years. In all experiment areas where barred owls were reduced, spotted owl survival increased. In the controlled areas of the experiment where barred owls were not reduced, the spotted owls’ survival rate continued to decline.

The proposed strategy was made with longevity in mind. “We don’t anticipate that you can go in, remove barred owls in one year and then walk away and have successful population trends. It takes a few years,” Bown said. “Multiple years of removal to get those new birds that are moving in to hopefully get to the point where spotted owls can grow.”

According to Moran, the plan is designed to have partners who will commit to a long, sustained effort.

This isn’t the only thing the plan addresses. Protocol for the removal of barred owls is taken extremely seriously, according to Bown. Individuals who kill barred owls must meet training and experience requirements to guarantee an accurate identification, a humane kill and to minimize damages to non-target species. Referred to as removal specialists, they operate under the direction of Fish and Wildlife and are required to have all applicable state, tribal, and federal licenses and permits. 

In the permits issued during the experimental removal of barred owls, about 4,500 barred owls were removed and no non-target species were killed, according to Bown.

For Bown, Moran and Fitzgerald, deciding how to protect the spotted owl is not easy. “We don’t take this lightly. We’ve come to this realization that this is the only way we can save the northern spotted owl,” Moran said. “We’ve done the experiments, we have the science behind us now and we feel that this is our obligation and it’s our responsibility to prevent the extinction of an iconic species in the Pacific Northwest.”

This article first appeared in the Salish Current.