With headlines such as “Federal agency plans to cull 450,000 barred owls to boost another species,” media nationwide announced the eyebrow-raising plan by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to protect the threatened and declining spotted owl from extinction. With its six-figure headline, the proposal has reverberated across the Pacific Northwest, provoking debates about how to ethically manage ecosystems that have been horribly mismanaged.
But the headlines are misleading. Megan Nagel, spokesperson for the USFWS, clarified that “This is not a target number for removal but is the maximum allowed” over the 30-year project period. The number – 450,000 – is a permitted cap, not a goal. According to those who work in spotted owl recovery, that level of killing is simply not going to happen. As for where barred owls will be killed, the plan itself limits that, and it probably won’t be anywhere near where you live.
The Owls
Barred owls, an invasive yet somewhat-native bird that is the target here, used to be rare in the Pacific Northwest. The range maps in the field guides of my childhood show them as non-existent here. I recall a July evening in 1997 when I made my way to Wildwood Park near Puyallup to see my lifer barred owls. It was a family with new fledglings. Peering from low horizontal branches, they seemed as curious about me as I of them. I had learned of their presence from a local rare bird alert.
They’re not rare anymore. I regularly encounter them in my backyard in Port Townsend. Like brown-headed cowbirds and great-tailed grackles, they have spread far beyond their native North American range due to human modification of the landscape. Like bark beetles, their population has boomed with the forestry practices of European colonization.
Many other species, of course, have gone the other way, declining due to habitat loss. Few have declined more than the spotted owl, a smaller cousin of the barred owl. From the Pacific Northwest to California’s Sierra Nevada, this owl is a key predator in old growth forest ecosystems. One of their favorite prey items is the flying squirrel.
Technically listed as federally threatened, spotted owls are endangered and declining, largely due to the loss of old growth forests. With these habitat changes, barred owls, which use a wider variety of forests and even residential areas, have moved in, spreading from the east and the Canadian boreal forest down thru the Pacific Northwest and into the mountains of California. They displace and kill spotted owls – and also western screech-owls. Writing in the Journal of Wildlife Management, Linda Long and Jared Wolfe summarized, “Barred owls exert an overwhelmingly negative influence on spotted owls, thereby threatening spotted owl population viability where the species co-occur.”
The last spotted owl in British Columbia disappeared a few years ago. On the Olympic Peninsula, where I go birding most days, I’ve never seen a spotted owl or a western screech-owl; they are both quite rare now.
The Plan
After a decade of pilot studies, the USFWS concluded that removing barred owls around nesting spotted owls works. In the absence of barred owls, spotted owls live longer and reproduce. Thus, their proposal – which they call a Strategy with a capital ‘S’ – is to kill barred owls to protect spotted owls.
After multiple public comment periods, the Strategy was finalized on July 3, 2024, as the “preferred option” in their Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The Record of Decision, the final legal seal, was issued August 28, 2024. For all this field work, analysis, reporting, paperwork, and public outreach and comment, they get a Special Purpose permit under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to kill barred owls.
The USFWS also maintains a website dedicated to this project, with a comprehensive list of FAQs.
The alarming number, actually 450,033 owls killed, is derived by assuming that approximately 15,000 owls will be killed each year for 30 years. Table 3-7 of the Final EIS has the exact calculations, which estimates the “maximum number of barred owls removed” under the permit. They actually included an option, which they rejected, that estimated removing over 700,000 barred owls. Given that the Strategy comes without funding or staffing and is largely limited to areas around the few remaining spotted owls, both of these six-digit numbers are fantasy.
The Logistics
Just how are barred owls removed? Using agency staff or trained contractors, barred owls are called in using a recording of their call and then shot with a shotgun. It’s pretty straightforward. During the pilot studies, 4,500 barred owls were killed and not a single spotted owl was shot by mistake.
Barred owl culling, however, is quite labor intensive. Assuming 15,000 owls are shot in one year, that would mean an average of 41 per night. Adjusting for holidays, weekends, and bad weather, that would increase to about 80 owls per night of work. Assuming a two-person hunting team can remove two pairs – 4 owls – per night on a good night, that would mean 20 staff devoted full time to barred owl removal. These are all optimistic numbers.
This gets us to the first limitation: staffing. Where are these staff coming from? Very few would come from the USFWS itself. The Strategy is dependent on “cooperating agencies.”
They list 11 such agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, and state agencies such as the Departments of Fish and Wildlife from Washington, Oregon, and California. They also mention that tribal and local agencies may be partners. At the bottom of their list, they add this caveat which seems to upend the definition of cooperation: “Designation as a cooperating agency does not imply that the agency supports the proposed Strategy or other alternatives that may be developed, and participation as a cooperating agency does not diminish or otherwise modify the agency’s independent statutory obligations and responsibilities under applicable Federal laws. Further, participation as a cooperating agency does not imply any future commitment of resources.”
That is to say, these agencies – the ones who will actually implement the Strategy – are not yet “cooperating.” They may not want to touch it with a ten-foot pole, may not have the money or staff time for it, and may find it in conflict with their other obligations. These could include anything from promoting camping and backpacking to deer hunting in barred owl target zones.
The second limitation is funding. The EIS acknowledges “Funding will be an important part of implementing the action. However, it is difficult to apply or budget for funding without the specifics of the action.” Apparently, targeting up to 80 owls per night is not specific enough. There are published estimates that range from $700 to $2,800 per owl removed. This works out to $56,000 to $224,000 per night of work, numbers that are simply infeasible. Regardless, the Strategy does not specify a funding source.
Concern regarding funding was raised repeatedly in the public comments, as was staff capacity. The USFWS’s response, which was repeated several times in the EIS, reminds the reader that the Strategy would be implemented “if funding and staffing were to be available.” They also used the ultimate fallback: “regulations do not require analysis of costs” at this stage. Right now, it’s just an idea and a permit.
They did add, “We anticipate that funding will come from a variety of sources based on the implementing entities,” which is another way of saying they are expecting that partnering agencies will provide both funding and staffing.
As for federal support, they say, “The Service cannot speculate on the level or source of funding that a Federal agency may choose to use for barred owl management…. Federal and State agencies operate on annual or biannual budgets and cannot guarantee specific funding actions over long periods. That does not reduce their commitment.” But it does reduce their commitment.
The final limitation comes from the Strategy itself: geographic scope. Barred owl removal is limited to the blue polygons outlined on the maps in the EIS (see Figures 2-2 thru 2-4). Especially in Washington, these are mostly national forests and parks. Reading deeper, barred owl management would be further limited to just half of each polygon at any one time.
While removal could occur anywhere within a polygon, “management would be focused on removing barred owls from within and around sites where northern spotted owls are present.” This makes sense. If you want to protect spotted owls from barred owls, target the barred owls near the spotted owls. “Near” is defined as within about two miles of known spotted owls.
Nagel summarized: “Barred owl removal would occur in strategic areas, within the mapped areas in the Strategy or around remaining spotted owl sites.” She added, “Barred owl management will not occur within neighborhood parks.”
This an enormous limitation because spotted owls are so rare. In much of Washington, there are so few spotted owls left that there simply aren’t many barred owls near them to shoot. Recent research has found spotted owls have declined 80% in Washington since the early 1990s (when they were already rare). In Oregon, they have declined at least 70% at most study sites. In California, declines were only 25 to 50%. This is all correlated with the spread of barred owls from north to south.
This part of the Strategy adds to the workload, because it means finding spotted owls first and then targeting barred owls in their vicinity. Neither of these steps are easy. Spotted owls are largely limited to unlogged forests, which tend to be in remote, difficult-to-access areas, often with very steep terrain. That’s why they were never logged. Just getting to promising locations typically involves a long drive on a mountainous dirt road, several miles of hiking, some of it off trail, and probably an overnight backpacking trip.
If a team making this journey is lucky, they may encounter more than one spotted owl territory on such a trip, but probably they’d just encounter one, or zero. At the spotted owl location, based on my personal experience, is probably one pair of barred owls that pose a threat to them. After hiking in, setting up camp, and waiting until near dark, the barred owls must be called in and then shot. Sometimes it works like a charm. Other times it doesn’t. Two spotted owl surveyors I spoke with told me that both spotted and barred owls can be surprisingly “skulky” and quiet, even when you know they are there. In that case, after that long drive and hike, the team would hear crickets. When I asked these surveyors about how these wildlife management agencies might be able to support staff to shoot 80 barred owls per night, every night, for 30 years, they thought it was absurd.
The Future
Setting aside these grandiose estimates, if only a dozen barred owls were removed from, say, Olympic National Park, in the vicinity of spotted owls, that could mean the difference between spotted owls persisting or becoming extirpated on the Olympic Peninsula. The Strategy – the permit and plan to shoot barred owls if necessary – is thus a good one. But it’s nothing more than just another tool in the toolbox. It will not be used 450,000 times. It will probably only be used a tiny fraction of that.
The key, as always, is habitat. Without functional old growth ecosystems, spotted owls will not exist. The reverse could also be said – without spotted owls, old growth ecosystems are incomplete. Fortunately, there are thousands of acres of second growth under protection. This century, some of that will be maturing into old growth. Hopefully, this Strategy will enable spotted owls to be part of these forests. Most of us will never hear a shot. But, in the future, our kids may hear them hooting – if they’re willing to backpack in.
Excellent explanation, thanks!
HERES MY VIEW. PLEASE ALLOW IT TO STAY POSTED
Regardless, it’s our fault for their decline, not really so much the barred owls. We only have 10 percent of old growth forests left because of the love of the almighty dollar. All the logging is what has taken away the spotted owls habitat and I don’t care if you plant 10 trees in its place, by the time trees get mature enough to qualify as old growth forests, the spotted owl will be gone. And the government is still pushing to take more of the old growth which is tragic and will have long term far reaching consequences. It’s not just the spotted owl in peril but humans as well. The forests are a big source that improve our air quality at a critical time for climate change, don’t forget. The government says they’ll plant 10 trees for every one tree they take but they are planting for commercial harvesting so they aren’t ever going to make it to old growth status anyway. So we are pretty much the reason for the spotted owls decline, plan to take even more of the 10 percent left of the old growth, plant trees in their place that will be taken way before they reach old growth level so it’s simply a diversion to make it look as if we are doing steps to counter the negative impact on the climate but aren’t really helping but, in fact, harming the process, culling thousands of barred owls knowing the spotted owls in reality are going to be impacted further by more habitat loss, so the culling is in vain, AND THATS A GOOD PLAN? Just like with all wildlife, God forbid any species flourish, they will get taken out by the DWF for sure as they ARE NOT ABOUT SAVING ANY WILDLIFE BUT MANAGING THEIR NUMBERS WHICH MEANS KILLING WILDLIFE. PERIOD. AND IN THIS CASE AS IN THE CASES GOING ON WITH BEARS, WOLVES AND WILD HORSES IN THE LONG RUN, THATS HOW THEY SAY THEY ARE SOLVING THE “ISSUES” WITH ANY GIVEN GROUP, ON OUR PUBLIC LANDS FOR A LOT OF IT, BUT ITS JUST NOT TRUE. THIS IS A REDICULOUS PLAN THAT WONT MAKE A DIFFERENCE EXCEPT TO THE THOUSANDS OF BEAUTIFUL BARRED OWLS WHO WILL DIE. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RAPES OUR PUBLIC LANDS WHILE QUIETLY SELLING SECTIONS OF IT OFF, WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION OR EVEN NOTICE. AND IT ALL COMES DOWN TO GREED. NO THIS IS ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT PLACATING THE PUBLIC. GET ANGRY BECAUSE ITS JUST LIKE THEY SAY THE NUMBERS ARE. LOOK AT THE ROUNDING UP OF OUR MAJESTIC WILD HORSES. THEY SAY THEY ARE IMPACTING GRASSLANDS. THEYVE BEEN OUT THERE FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS, AND GRASSLANDS SURVIVED. THEY COMPLAIN THE CATTLE RANCHERS TURN OUT ON OUR PUBLIC LANDS TO GRAZE FOR FREE HAVE TO COMPETE FOR FOOD WHILE LINING POCKETS IN DC TO DO SO BUT THE HORSES HAVE CALLED THAT HOME, GRAZED ON THOSE PLAINS, HAVE FAMILY UNITS THAT STAY TOGETHER FOR CENTURIES SO IF ANYTHING, THEIR HABITAT HAS GOTTEN SMALLER AND SMALLER AND THE SOLUTION? THIS YEAR ALONE THE “NUMBERS” THEYRE ROUNDING UP IS AROUND 24,000, SOMETIMES TAKING 5000 IN ONE ROUND UP! FAMILIES SEPERATED, CHASED DOWN IN TERROR VIA HELICOPTER FOR THE MOST PART, MANY INJURED AND HAVE TO BE DESTROYED. SOME KILLED IN THE PROCESS. JUST TO BET SHOVED TOGETHER IN KILL PENS FOR UP TO 2 YEARS AND IF THEY LIVE THROUGH THE STRESS OF CAPTURE, AND THEIR INJURIES, THEY GO TO AUCTION. AND ONES NOT BOUGHT GO TO CANADA OR MEXICO TO SLAUGHTER HOUSES. AND, THE WORST PART OF IT IS, SINCE THE COMPLAINT BASICALLY COMES DOWN TO OVER POPULATION, ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUPS HAVE SHOWN THAT THERE IS BIRTH CONTROL THATS PROVEN TO WORK AND MUCH MORE COST EFFECTIVE THAT THE LABOR INTENSIVE MAN POWER IT TAKES TO DO THESE ROUND UPS NOT TO MENTION COST OF THE HELICOPTERS AND CREW. AGAIN ITS ABOUT MONEY, MANAGING THE NUMBERS, KILLING WHEN THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES MORE HUMANE AND THEY OBVIOUSLY HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH FUNDING OR MAN POWER. SO KEEP WATCHING, BE OUTRAGED. ITS JUSTIFIED AND START LOOKING INTO WHATS HAPPENING TO THESE BEAUTIFUL HORSES, BEARS THAT ARE HUNTED EVERY SPRING FOR TROPHY HUNTING AND DWF NOW ALLOWS KILLING HIBERNATING BEARS ISSUING LICENSES AT $250 EACH, WOLVES GUNNED DOWN VIA HELICOPTERS AFTER COMING OFF THE ENDANGERED LIST, AGAIN BECAUSE OF RANCHERS COMPLAINTS AND THEIR MONEY AND THERES MORE. WE ARE THEIR VOICE, THEIR LAST HOPE. THE WILD HORSES AND THE BURROS GETTING SLAUGHTERED, THE BEARS, SOME ASLEEP, THE WOLVES WHO HAVE VERY LITTLE HABITAT AND GOD FORBID THEY TAKE ONE COW THAT ARE LEFT UNATTENDED BECAUSE THEYRE STARVING OR THE OWLS THAT WILL BE KILLED IN VAIN BECAUSE THE FUNDING AND MAN POWER WILL BE AVAILABLE AND BEYOND, WE ARE THE ONLY VOICE THEY WILL HAVE, THE ONLY REPRESENTATION ON THE SANE SIDE OF REASONING. STAND UP. EDUCATE YOURSELF. GET ANGRY AND BE LOUD. LET YOUR VOTES REFLECT YOUR DISAPPROVAL TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVES. DONT BUY THIS STORY. ITS JUST NOT ACCURATE.
I agree with you. This is sickening in any form. The only invasive species is the human species.
Behind every “animal problem,” is a human problem.
We are a selfish and violent species. Don’t blame the animals to help you sleep at night
So glad to learn the reality of the ruling—what it actually comes down to. Thank you.
More human caused problems. Barred owls are an invasive species to the Northwest, outcompeting our native Northern Spotted Owl. Barred owls are Native to the Northeast. How did they invade the Northwest? Mostly across the Great Plains, where wildfire suppression by settlers allowed trees to invade that natural grassland, giving Barred Owls a corridor to travel.
Unintended consequence of European settlement. (Another invasive species?).
Will we ever learn to leave the natural world alone?
Thank you for the excellent information, which is much more helpful than the sensational headlines the plan keeps generating. I feel like I can now help others who are concerned about a massacre of barred owls better understand the strategy and the need.
Its not helpful to call it a massacre. It is humans trying to deal with a human caused problem. Sad for all involved.
I am not calling it a massacre–I am referring to many who see that big number and think it’s happening all at once, which truly would be a massacre, no?–and to the press who give that impression. It is a sad situation but humans are also “natural” so often we must struggle to balance it all, including our impact.
How is a bird native to the USA consirded an invasive species if they fly to a different state!?! Any bird owns the sky and literally the planet!!! The human race is the problem! WAKE UP PEOPLE! Humans will be the demise of this planet. I don’t need a degree to see that! If you idiots can’t see it you’re part of the problem not the solution!
Thank you!JP
Before they kill any more “invasive” owls you need to watch Ken Burns movie about the American Buffalo. Nature is perfect. Mankind forever continues to destroy it and mess it up. Thinking they know best when really they know NOTHING. LEAVE IT TO NATUTE, NATURE WILL TAKE CARE OF THE PROBLEM !
Thankyou for expressing my feelings! Man could be considered an invasive species in many parts of the world, and Lord knows the harm we have caused.
So very sad that an innocent animal will be the one losing its life when all it did was survive way too well when we do what we do best, destroy pretty much everything around us. I don’t want the spotted owl to go extinct, but I sure wish there was a better way than this because taking even one innocent life is too much.
I’m willing to give a home to a few if it help from killing them. I’m sure there are many people who can be vetted to own them as domestic birds but still wild rather than kill them. That’s a thought.
This is a mean thing to do. I love barred owls. They should petition against this.
How do you know the count of barred owls? Just by their calls recorded during counting season? I think some security groups use their call… humans use their calls too. Maybe if you grow more trees, where the spotted owls were living they will come back to where you used to find them to be counted again.
This plan is the more absurd ever,leave the nature alone ,is that is hard to understand?
We should let nature take care of nature. It has worked since the beginning of time. I’m all for protecting wildlife from human invasion when we are the issue but in this case nature is doing what nature does, adapt to survive. Good thing we don’t use this same mentality for all the “invasive” people that are in the US.
A native to Missouri, owls are a very important part to keep rodents in check. Man is the fault of this. Greedy people half to log off land for that mighty dollar. Amazing to see tracks of land destroyed by logging, I’m proud of the mdc in our state, although I don’t always agree with thier decisions. The owls are federally protected, in Missouri. Should be protected in all the other states. As man proceeds with this killing, won’t be long they won’t have any owls atoll. Leave them alone .
Why not trap the barred owls and take them back East? No possibility for non target avians being killed. We could enlist Canadians to remove some as well. Shooting one successful bird of pretty just to save another seems very awful!
Is there a recipe section? Will there be a hunter education and owl i.d. class online.? What shot size is recommended? Non tox of course.
Ridiculous!!! Humans are vile.
Thank you for bringing yet another daunting EIS down to Common Sense. I love the NEPA process, but reading these documents is always intimidating. You remind me once again that when reading between the lines, always remember that the answer lies in habitat! As an old Earth Firster, I remember those logging days all too well. (Judy Bari, tree sitting, loggers tempted to run over teenagers and 20 -somethings in the forest)
I’m sorry this is a final Eis. Because a good addition to their plan would be to mark those two miles surrounding found spotted owl habitat as prohibited to logging, to encourage the old growth there is to expand. Had F&W thought of this, they may have quickly forgotten it, to avoid angering yet another segment of society, lol. As it is, they decided to relegate this long drawn out Strategy, with a capital S, to reside mostly on the paper it is written on. Because, as you have shown, this truly ain’t happening anyway. As I see it, the best outcome of this EIS will be those few employees who get to hike into Old growth forest and commune with nature for a while.
Again, thank you for drawing me into this situation with your fascinating unfolding of yet another weird obnoxious government ‘decision’!
I don’t think a native species expanding its range qualifies as an “invasive” species”.
Lets not quibble about semantics. Barred owls don’t belong in the northwest, came here from the east coast and are killing and outcompeting our Northern Spotted Owls. We have gone to great lengths to protect our owls, only to watch them decline seriously due to Barred owl. Our owls didn’t evolve to co-exist with them and there isn’t time to do so.
Our protection plans serve to prevent clearcutting. Wipe out our owls, we lose our forests and say bye bye to the Barred owls.
Im a birder and don’t want to watch any birds killed needlessly.
When are we as humans going to stop thinking we need to “manage” everything? This is a sad and horrible plan. There are few sounds in our woods at night that I love to hear as much as “who cooks for me”. The barred owl is an amazing bird and is hardly invasive. Let nature take care of nature. In the end we will all be better off
Nature didn’t bring the Barred owl to the Northwest, Humans did by suppressing prairie wildfires to serve human agriculture. And Nature won’t / take care of this problem.
It would be naive and harmful to “let nature take its course”. Should we let nature take care of climate change? Last time that happened it was called the 6th great extinction and the Earth lost 90% of it’s species. Humans emerged from that disaster. How did that work out? Ask the wooly mammoth.
We are officially in the 6th mass extinction event of planet Earth declared by the scientific community NOW. We are losing forever AT LEAST ONE SPECIES A DAY AND IN ONE 24 HOUR PERIOD, WE LOST 231 species, NEVER to roam the Earth again. We cannot afford to kill off anything. Really people, look for yourselves. If we don’t demand it stop, get these criminals out of office that are forever affecting all of us negatively on many levels, we are just as guilty. There’s no time for complacency. Wake up and stand up.
Shooting barred owls Is a tragedy brought on by human intervention in the natural world. The suppression of wildfires in the Great Plains allowed the un-natural invasion of trees which provided a corridor for barred owls to spread beyond their long, evolutionary based, established home range.
It is too late to “let nature take its course”. Evolution (the strongest force of nature) determines where creatures and plants develop, live and thrive. Look at range maps of, for instance, barred owls and spotted owls. They don’t overlap. Those owls evolved over eons to occupy the habitat within their home ranges. When barred owls found their way into the spotted owl range, via un-natural, human caused forests in the Great Plains, they began out-competing spotted owls – gobbling up their food and outright killing them. At best, they mate and we get “sparred owls”..
Letting nature take its course would ultimately kill off all the spotted owls, as sure as killing all those barred owls would eliminate them from spotted owl range. Unless the Great Plains are de-forested, barred owls will continue invading the northwest. Imagine the outcry if humans clearcut the “natural”forests in the Great Plains. The Nebraska National Forest boasted that it was the largest “human made “ forest in the world after it was established.
Once humans interrupt evolution by intervening in the natural world, there is no stopping them (us). Sentiment pleas to “let nature take its course” by stopping human intervention is uninformed and futile. The love of the sound of “who cooks for you” is a human demand. Those owls aren’t hooting to us. Clearcutting old growth spotted owl habitat is a human demand. We humans intervened and disrupted evolution. Until (when?) we disappear, we must (will?) continue to “manage” the natural world according to our demands. Sad.
Everything, including humans, are “invasive” and migrate/thrive depending on their ability to adapt to current conditions. This strategy of blaming/targeting a symptom instead of the cause (primarily logging). Bravo USFWS, another gross mismanagement of taxpayer funds.
Thanks all for your thoughts.
Just to be more clear on how Barred Owls got to the Pacific Northwest — it was not through Nebraska or across the Great Plains. Those are too sparsely treed for them. Looking at a range map from a 1966 field guide, the Barred Owls range was everything east of 100 degrees longitude, but included a finger up into the Canadian boreal forests of Saskatchewan and Alberta, up to the east side of the Rockies. After that, they spread over the Canadian Rockies, into British Columbia, and then down into the Pacific Northwest. They arrived here from the north. They continue to spread south into Oregon and northern California.
If they have always had a corridor to the PNW, why are they now showing up in large numbers?