A controversial plan to kill nearly a half-million barred owls to save spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest has the green light after the U.S. Senate rejected a resolution to stop it.
The Senate on Wednesday voted 72-25 to reject a bipartisan resolution, launched in July, which would have nullified the Biden-era owl-killing plan.
Wyoming Republican U.S. Sens. Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso voted to reject the resolution.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Barred Owl Management Strategy comes with a roughly $1 billion price tag, and would involve wildlife agents shooting barred owls.
To give the spotted owls better odds, feds have already killed roughly 4,500 barred owls along the West Coast since 2009.
But apparently that’s not enough, so the plan is to shoot another 470,000 over the next 30 years or so in California, Oregon and Washington.
Barred owls are originally from the eastern United States, but they’ve been moving West, claiming new territory as they go.
Some argue that they’re displacing threatened spotted owls.
In Wyoming, barred owls have gained a toehold in the Grand Teton area and there is concern that they could eventually push out native great gray owls.
Will The Owl Massacre Work?
Some Wyoming bird experts have mixed views regarding whether the strategy of slaughtering barred owls to save spotted owls will work.
“It’s one of the greater ethical debates of wildlife management of our time,” Bryan Bedrosian, conservation director for the Teton Raptor Center, told Cowboy State Daily.
In some areas, shooting barred owls might create “habitat corridors” for spotted owls.
He added that barred owls, spotted owls and great gray owls are all closely-related species.
In the Pacific Northwest, barred owls and spotted owls compete for old-growth forest habitat. Some argue that barred owls have been bullying spotted owls out of prime habitat.
While the overall effectiveness of shooting barred owls is controversial and questioned by many, something must be done to help spotted owls, Bedrosian said.
“The chances of spotted owls going extinct if we don’t do anything are great,” he said.
Chuck Preston, the founding curator of the Draper Natural History Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, is skeptical whether shooting barred owls will save spotted owls in the long run.
Barred owls will probably reproduce and reclaim territory faster than wildlife agents can kill them, he said.
Barred owls compete for nesting sites with other owls “and they can be very territorial,” he said.
Even so, gaining a better understanding of the owls’ habitat might be a better way to save spotted owls, he said.
There could be sections of habitat or conditions under which spotted owls have the advantage, but there’s no way of knowing that without further research, Preston said.
“That’s part of the problem,” he said. "We need to understand the limitation of each species."
Wyoming Senators Vote To Keep Shooting Owls
Wyoming’s senators support the plan to keep shooting barred owls.
“Senator Lummis is supportive of managing the barred owl population to allow spotted owls the ability to recover,” Lummis spokesman Joe Jackson said in an email to Cowboy State Daily. “Pro-active conservation will always be cheaper and stronger than reactive methods."
In spotted owl territory, barred owls are an invasive species, according to a statement from Barrasso’s office sent to Cowboy State Daily.
“Senator Barrasso believes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should use the best available science to develop and implement wildlife management plans on public lands,” the statement says. "USFWS worked with states to develop the barred owl management strategy as a way to conserve the threatened northern spotted owl species.
“Barred owls are a nonnative, invasive species in Western North America and pose a threat to the continued survival of the northern spotted owl. This strategy is supported by the previous administration and the Trump administration."
Politics, Not Conservation
Shooting masses of barred owls is about politics and timber industry interests, not conservation, Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, told Cowboy State Daily.
He spearheaded efforts to draw up the resolution to halt the owl-shooting program.
He said that he was disappointed that Senate Republicans failed to reject “the billion-dollar Biden plan to shoot half a million barred owls.”
Meanwhile, Democrats failed to recognize it as a ploy to give logging companies more access to old-growth forest in the Northwest, he said.
He said the plan has “zero chance of working” when it comes to saving spotted owls.
“Why is the U.S. government trying to dictate social relationships between two species of owls?” he said.
He’s worried that approach could set a precedent of killing one species to supposedly save another, threatened or endangered species.
What’s happening between spotted owls and barred owls is just another example of competition in nature, and nature functions through competition, Pacelle said.
So he questions the need for humans to intervene by killing barred owls.
Great Gray Owls Vs. Barred Owls In Wyoming
The Grand Teton area is on the southern end of the great gray owls’ natural habitat, Bedrosian said.
There have been reported barred owl sightings there going as far back as the 1990s, he said.
In 2023, a nesting pair of barred owls was found in the Teton region.
At least one other individual barred owl has been confirmed there as well, Bedrosian said.
Another nesting pair of barred owls was recently discovered near Ennis, Montana, he said.
“I do think there is potential for them to be problematic” toward the great gray owl population, if barred owl numbers continue to grow, he added.
He noted that in the area where the Teton barred owls were found, there had been great gray owls, up until 2021.
It could be coincidence that the great gray owls disappeared from the spot at roughly the same time the barred owls were verified. Or, it might not be, he noted.
“It’s not (established) cause and effect. But it does raise questions” over whether the barred owls drove the great gray owls out, Bedrosian said.
Researchers will keep an eye on the situation, he said.
The female nesting barred owl in the Tetons was recently captured and outfitted with a tracking device transmitter.
Researchers use audio recording devices to capture sounds made by owls, which can help identify species and track the birds’ movements.
“We’ve taken it to the point where we can identify individual owls” by their vocalizations, he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
