Plan finalized to kill thousands of barred owls around Northwest

The federal government will move ahead with plans to kill tens of thousands of barred owls in Washington, Oregon, and California to protect threatened spotted owls.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a decision on Wednesday to adopt a controversial barred owl management strategy that calls for lethal removal of the birds by shooting them with shotguns and, in some cases, capturing and euthanizing them.

Barred owls are native to the eastern U.S. but began expanding their range in the early 1900s and arrived in the Pacific Northwest around the 1970s. The invasive birds prefer the same habitat as spotted owls and compete with them for the same foods.

They are blamed as a primary cause for declines in northern spotted owl populations – along with habitat loss from logging on non-federal lands and wildfires.

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/08/28/plan-finalized-to-kill-thousands-of-barred-owls-around-northwest/