SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – “They’ve looked at literally every potential option to do anything to help save the spotted owl – and this icky option is the only one that really has any, chance at all of saving the species,” Karla Bloom, executive director at the International Owl Center in Minnesota, told KCBS Radio’s Holly Quan.
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She was referring to a new method proposed to help save California spotted owls : shooting another type of owl.
“So, as you can imagine, killing one owl to save another is not very popular,” said Bloom. “But, there basically are no other alternatives, is what it boils down to.”
In January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a Notice of Availability for a draft Environmental Impact Statement that included a proposal to shoot barred owls . This lethal removal would be accomplished by broadcasting recorded barred owl territorial calls and shooting birds that respond closely.
With a reduction in the barred owl population, the FWS hopes that spotted owl populations will be able to rebound. While the California spotted owl is native to the West, the barred owl is native to the East Coast of North America and is considered invasive further west.
“Barred owls are generalist predators and opportunistic hunters, eating almost any species they encounter, including small mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, earthworms, snails, slugs, insects, and crayfish,” according to the FWS. “They have invaded western forests from their historical range in eastern North America, threatening the long-term survival of spotted owls and impacting a variety of native wildlife species that either prey for or compete with barred owls for the same food resources.”
Researchers have even recorded instances of barred owls killing spotted owls, the service said. Experts believe that this more-aggressive species began expanding west of the Mississippi around the turn of the 20th century.
“One common theory is that the barred owl’s westward movement was precipitated by changes to the environment in the boreal forest and Great Plains as Europeans increasingly settled there and dramatically altered the landscape,” the FWS said. “This may have removed natural barriers that previously inhibited the barred owl’s westward expansion. Barred owls now outnumber spotted owls in many portions of the latter’s range.”
In recent years, other factors have made conditions even more dire for California spotted owls. More than 1.7 million acres of forestland in the Sierra Nevada have burned in wildfires since 2020 , significantly impacting their habitat. These owls require forests with varying tree heights as well as both pine and leafy trees.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity , the mature and old-growth forests in the Sierra Nevada and in the mountains of coastal and Southern California where the owls live is also under serious threat from current logging practices and climate change. In 2023, California spotted owls became protected under the Endangered Species Act, said the center in a press release.
“So basically, we’re at the point where spotted owls are heading very rapidly towards extinction. They’re listed on the endangered species list as threatened,” Bloom explained. “They’re required to be protected. They have done experimental removal over the course of several years and found that was the only option that they’ve looked at that has slowed or stopped the decline of spotted owls where barred owls have moved in.”
She added that no spotted owls were killed during the experimental removals and that similar measures have been taken in the past to help endangered species.
However, as Bloom told Quan, the approach is controversial. As of Tuesday, the draft EIS published by the FWS had more than 8,000 public comments.
“I think the proposal is a foolish one and should be dropped,” said a December comment from a Washington man named John Marshall . “It is akin to putting a species on respiratory support indefinitely.”
Bloom also acknowledged that “both options stink,” regarding whether to do nothing or to move forward with the barred owl removal and said she’s not advocating for one over the other as a conservationist.
“Basically, if you say, ‘Hey, we shouldn’t do this,’ you’re voting for spotted owls to go extinct. Or if you say, ‘Hey, do this,’ then you’re voting to kill barred owls,” she said.
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