(MENAFN-IANS) Los Angeles, Aug 29 (IANS) The US Fish and Wildlife Service has announced a controversial strategy to kill nearly half a million invasive barred owls in the Pacific Northwest in an effort to prevent the extinction of the native spotted owl.
The management strategy is the first comprehensive tool developed to address the significant threat posed to the survival of the Northern and California Spotted Owls in Washington, Oregon and California by non-native and invasive barred owls, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday.
The United States’ top federal wildlife conservation agency said in a press release that the strategy would be a phased process and would rely on willing land managers and landowners to manage the barred owls, Xinhua news agency reported.
The agency estimated that a maximum of 450,000 invasive barred owls could be removed within 30 years, or about 15,000 per year.
Barred owls are native to eastern North America, but spread westward during the 20th century and now outnumber spotted owls in most parts of Washington, Oregon, and California.
The spotted owl’s population has declined rapidly due to competition from invasive barred owls and habitat loss and is considered an endangered species, the press release states. Similarly, the spotted owl in California is also endangered.
“As wildlife professionals, we have approached this matter with caution and have not made this decision lightly,” said Kessina Lee, director of the service’s Oregon Office.
“The spotted owls are at a crossroads and we must protect both the barred owls and their habitat to save them. This is not about favoring one owl over the other. If we act now, future generations will be able to see both species of owls in our western forests,” Lee added.
Department of Conservation officials said lethal removal of barred owls from designated conservation areas is the only population reduction method proven to reduce the barred owl population and improve the spotted owl population.
According to the management strategy, the killings would be carried out by trained professionals and would occur in less than half of the areas where spotted owls and invasive barred owls coexist within the spotted owl’s range.
Although officials said public and partner comments were taken into account in developing the strategy and making decisions, the new plan remains controversial and faces resistance from conservation and animal welfare organizations.
Leading animal welfare and birdwatching groups in the country, including Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, issued a joint statement Wednesday accusing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s plan of being “costly, unworkable and inhumane.”
“Despite the agency’s attempts to demonize barred owls, the animals are native to North America and protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Like hundreds of other bird species, they have been expanding their range, a process accelerated by human interference with the environment,” the statement said.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing by far the largest plan to slaughter birds of prey ever seen in the world,” Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, said in the statement.
“The agency is embarking on a deadly treadmill from which it can never escape. The two likely consequences of this plan are a massive loss of barred owls and no long-term improvement in the spotted owl’s chances of survival,” Pacelle added.
Former wildlife biologist Kent Livezey of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the cost of killing 450,000 barred owls at more than $225 million, making it one of the most expensive management projects for threatened or endangered species ever, according to the organizations.
In the statement, Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy assured that they would call on the U.S. Congress to thwart the plan, but also announced that they would sue in federal court to stop the project.
A total of 164 wildlife and animal protection organizations called on U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in a letter last week to “abandon the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s reckless plan to unleash ‘hunters’ to implement a plan for the mass, sustained killing of barred owls across millions of acres of forest lands in the Pacific Coast states.”
The organizations argued that the “practical elements of the plan are not feasible and its negative side effects would impact all forest habitats.” They added that the plan “will cause severe disturbance to wildlife from the forest floor to the treetops and result in an undetermined number of killings of other native owl species (including Spotted Owls) due to confusion.”
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