In a last-ditch effort to rescue the northern spotted owl from oblivion and protect the California spotted owl population, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed culling a staggering number of barred owls across a swath of 11 to 14 million acres in Washington, Oregon and Northern California....
The idea is to take up shotguns and night scopes against half a million of these "invasive" owls.
Mr. Pacelle questions whether barred owls, which are indigenous to North America, truly meet the criteria for an invasive species.
This leap proves irresistible:
“This ‘invasive’ language rings familiar to me in our current political debates,” he said. “Demonize the migrants, and the harsh policy options become much easier from a moral perspective.”
Remember when spotted owls were "a cause célèbre in the 1980s as environmentalists saw it as a way to force the U.S. government to drastically reduce logging in northwestern federal forests"?
Over the passionate objections of the timber industry, spotted owls were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. As loggers mounted protests, dead owls were nailed to road signs and “owl fricassee” appeared facetiously on restaurant menus.... Despite sharp logging cutbacks, the bird’s population decline continued, especially in areas where barred owls were densest.
It's really the fault of us, the people:
Barred owls started making their way west in the early 1900s as European settlers transformed the Midwest landscape from prairie to patches of woodland....
The barred owls were hard working and uncomplaining and happy to eat "anything and everything" — "Western screech owls, rare reptiles and amphibians." Meanwhile, the spotted owls would only deign to eat "flying squirrels and wood rats." The immigrants owls were eating the prey that the natives turned their beaks up at.
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you Probably DON'T want to know about federal actions concerning Brook Trout
LOL, the sainted immigrant owls. Dont be mean to them. If they want to go after non-native animals why don't they go after the "Killer bees" from Africa?
More 'trust the (Darwinist) science' bullshite. They're the same bird.
The two species occasionally hybridize, or mate, producing an offspring that is half spotted and half barred.
I scanned through the story, and nowhere is it disclosed why it is so important to save the Spotted Owl. I realize this might be apostasy here, but species come and go all the time through history, not necessarily just because of man's evil devastation. Does the Spotted Owl fill some important ecological niche that elevates its natural importance in the scheme of forest management? It seems like they're picky eaters with a more limited diet, and Barred Owls are more efficient predators, with a wider dietary range.
"“And besides being too time-consuming, where would you relocate the owls to? No one wants them.” You could “let nature take its course,” he added, but that course would be extinction for the spotted owl."
What's the purpose of this campaign, anyway? Stopping 'nature taking it's course'? Didn't Chairman Mao try to do this with sparrows or something?
So, invasive non-native migrants are bad. Bad enough to justify shooting them on sight. I'd settle for deportation myself, but I guess I'm a bit of a squish.
Ann please do a poll...
Answer only if you would consider voting for Trump: Should Trump put Kristi Noem in charge of Dept. of Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service effort to cull barred owls across a swath of 11 to 14 million acres in Washington, Oregon and Northern California?
Yes. Obviously. She shot her dog to death!
No. A tough lady. But she should stick to Farm work.
With California chasing gun owners away for several decades, the cull will likely be executed by state officials. Expect a lot of broken windows, damaged vehicles, dogs killed, spotted owls inadvertently killed, and personal injury lawsuits. Expect the officials to shoot themselves in the feet or shoot each other too.
Watch a local sheriff's deputy shoot a car after thinking an acorn falling on its roof was gunfire:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-florida-deputy-repeatedly-shoot-man-thinking-falling-acorn-rcna138829
See the US Navy's backward riflescope and messed up weapon. The government is "always ready to serve and protect."
https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2024-04-11/navy-backwards-scope-photo-13528758.html
To recreate the pre-1900 environment, San Francisco must immediately turn its Hetch Hetchy drinking water supply reservoir back to nature and restore Yosemite National Park. Save an owl, starve a San Franciscan.
Wait wait wait.... they let in MILLIONS of illegals and here these owls, just doing what they do, they wanna murder by the millions to??? They call them 'invasive'... and yet they allow this invasion of the Southern Border...
There is a smaller fight over plans to cull a couple of thousand mule deer on Catalina by shooting them from helicopters carrying marksmen. They were introduced for sport hunting, but not enough sportsmen to keep the population from growing and starving on the small island.
Sounds like a racist policy. The barred and spotted owls are really different races of the same species -- they interbreed readily, with their offspring being "sparred owls" -- no, really!
We've been told for 40 years that the spotted owls cannot live without pristine old growth forest, yet their soul brothers from the east somehow expanded across the continent *because* of human development? Makes no sense.
We have barred owls on our property on Whidbey Island in NW Washington. They're a hoot to listen to. The feds had better not show up to shoot them.
Shorter NYT: The government must fight natural selection.
Humans looking to climb the career ladder always err on the side of monkeying with shit…
We have three kinds of owls in our neighborhood. Hide this story from our conservation association.
The immigrants owls were eating the prey that the natives turned their beaks up at.
If that's true--if they go after different prey, then from where comes the assumption that reducing the Barred Owl population will help the Spotted Owls?
This kind of micromanaging of the environment rarely ends well.
The hubris of these people is appalling. They'll kill 1/2 million owls (take a moment to imagine that number of dead birds piled up in one place) and in the end it will not work. Things change people. You can't stop it and who are you to decree what nature should look like anyway?
The idea is to take up shotguns and night scopes against half a million of these "invasive" owls.
Gov. Noem, call your office.
I guess they've forgotten the lesson of the Kaibab deer. Competition and predator control generally have extreme consequences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaibab_Plateau#Kaibab_deer
Mandatory reference to My Cousin Vinny:
https://youtu.be/5Oiy5RcDf40
Duck Duck Go says that the Barrel Owls are lighter plumaged than the Spotted ones. Clearly Environmental Racism is a factor here as they take over spaces from Feathers of Color.
Christopher B said...
"The two species occasionally hybridize, or mate, producing an offspring that is half spotted and half barreled."
Under the "One Feather" rule, we are required by law to count them as Barreled and ignore their Spotted heritage.
Birds have this wonderful suite of anatomical and physiological adaptations. Together they called the power of flight. Possessing the power of flight is almost certainly connected to their status as the last surviving clade within the Dinosauria. During the Mesozoic, the birds had a competitor for the role of dominant flying vertebrate, the Pterosauia, a clade of archosaurs even more highly evolved for the airborne lifestyle than the birds. However, something about the birds allowed some of them to survive the great Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that destroyed the pterosaurs completely. Paleontologists rarely speak about that fact because they haven't a clue.
Whatever the reason, so they have survived, but in style. There are over 10,000 described extant species of birds, whereas the number of described extant mammalian species is no more than 7000. This dominance over mammals is likely because they get around. It's what they do. They travel, they out-complete, they diversify and evolve. Persecuting owls because they can fly is an idea that can only arise in the totalitarian progressive mind -- Aristos, Gerondins, Kulaks, Jews, now it's owls. After the owls, it's Republicans.
gilbar said...
"you Probably DON'T want to know about federal actions concerning Brook Trout."
I heard she was one of the protesters arrested on campus.
In the midst of the hysteria about spotted owls in the late eighties, we went hiking at Mt. Rainier. We saw a spotted owl within ten minutes. Not so rare?
Perfect the world through extermination...
Sounds vaguely familiar.
Replacement theory realized through undocumented migration is for the birds. Also, tilting at wind turbines, and clear-cutting green growth for novel Green deals.
The two species occasionally hybridize, or mate, producing an offspring that is half spotted and half barred.
The question is whether the offspring can reproduce. If the offspring are sterile, like, for instance, mules, then the hybridization will only speed the extinction along.
Species go extinct all the damned time. Some day our own species will, too. There’s a certain kind of environmentalist that wants to blame all extinctions on mankind. The barred owls were always going to get to Northern California. Blaming humans for causing what was always going to happen is sort of stupid.
Well, at least now we know what kind of "Service" they are providing to the Fish and Wildlife. Pretty much the same kind they supply to the rest of us.
Barred Owls Rock! Give legal status to Barred Owls in California! We need sanctuary movement in California for the Barred Owl.
Environmentalists are the real conservatives, maybe even reactionaries.
Sometimes humanity puts its finger on the Darwinian scales. I understand that the dodo bird is extinct simply because it was easy and fun for men to kill. Men like to kill things for fun. Some women too, but mostly men. I understand, however, that women were also responsible for the killing of many birds. They used to like tall plumed feathers for their hats and would stop at nothing to attain those feathers. No ostrich was safe in their vicinity.....I don't favor either the spotted or barred owl. I'm neutral and completely above the fray. Let the conflict proceed according to the Darwinian rules of engagement and may the best bird win.
I chatted by e-mail with a government guy who is somewhat of an expert in the smaller mammals of southern Ontario. He is kind of the official spotter of opussums here--they were around in pioneer days, they disappeared for a while, now they have come back from the States. We touched on skunks, raccoons, coyotes, weasels, muskrats and other things. Many species are actually on the increase in the suburbs. I said: so there will be an ecosystem moving forward, but it won't be the "original" ecosystem of pioneer days (and of course that had changed too; the La Brea Tar Pits give an idea of the range of species before the last Ice Age). Is it good policy to try to return to an ecosystem that has been lost from various causes? He seemed to agree that there is something foolish or sentimental about that idea. Rachel Carson sort of wanted to be known as an advocate for native species, but she loved roadside flowers--mostly "alien" species. Think of our decorative flowering trees. We just passed magnolia time--and we don't live in the Dixie South, to say nothing of China.
Oh, for fuck's sake- why can't we have a culling of the federal government.
Should we cull the unwanted owls?
Who knows?
What Mark Neilson said. The two species are actually interbreeding, thus creating a third species. I do remember the BS the government spewed in the 80's. IMHO, the whole kerfuffle was mainly about eliminating the lumber industry, not saving the spotted owl.
Hard to square the follow science by humans moving into timber that cannot sustain humans, by calling an owl that only showed up to a food source as being the invasive one
It almost like scientist "adjust" science to meet some arbitrary "correct and natural" level of all species.
Test case for dealing with those pesky whites....see South Africa leading the way....
Some thoughts:
Several years ago, a Northwest FWS Office web-site which had info on the Barred Owl / Spotted Owl competition was using anthropomorphic language to describe Barred Owls such as “bad”, etc, which is a telltale sign of policy bias.
And… I just searched and this still continues, so some examples. J. David Wiens, one of the principal authors of the more recent Barred Owl Study describes Barred Owls this way:
“As an apex predator and fiercely territorial invader
“Fiercely?” “Invader?”
Sigh… (the sigh is mine).
- see “https://www.usgs.gov/centers/forest-and-rangeland-ecosystem-science-center/science/threat-invasive-barred-owls-northern
and from a FWS Feature Story
“Northern Spotted Owl still fights for survival.”
"Fights?"
Just stop (also mine).
- see “https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/northern-spotted-owl-still-fights-survival”
That’s loaded language that I don’t expect a researcher or agency to use and suggests a policy bias, which is a caution to then look out for normative science.
For more on normative science - see https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/lackey/2019/01/25/is-science-biased-toward-natural-environments/
Robert Lackey discusses normative science. His graduate course at Oregon State University - FW 620 - Ecological Policy - is an excellent course.
My thought is that as Barred Owls populations are reduced in the areas where lethal population control takes place, other bird species may “fill the void”. Please note that there is documentation of interbreeding of Barred and Spotted Owls. What do you do with THOSE owls? Soup?
Note - we do lethal population control of House Sparrows for one of our research areas where we study Tree Swallows, Eastern Bluebird, Great-crested Flycatchers, etc. I do not like killing adult House Sparrows, I feel very bad every time I do, but see the mortalities of Tree Swallows caused by House Sparrows.
don't owls already have 'night scopes'? from mother nature
do they need more ? is this federal boondoggle?
“Professing themselves to be wise, they Became fools…”
Weren't there anti-logging campaigns some time during the end of the last century that were in support of saving the spotted owl?
It sounds like there are migrant owls, coming in, doing the jobs the native owls don't want to do. Maybe the spotted owls need to learn to code.
Readereing.
Not a very bright move on the Californis DNRs part. There are only 4100 residents on the island and it costs 92$ round trip for one adult. They also have an urban mountain lion and coyote problem.
Maybe if the Spotted Owls hadn't been such smug assholes. I guess we'll never know.
Where to begin?
..The Government picking winners and losers again.
..It (shooting animals) is not illegal when the Government does it.
..Can we do this for the packs of wild dogs that roam my South Texas County?
Government by dumbasses.
Big Mike, Barred Owl and Northern Spotted Owl hybrids can successfully breed and hatch young.
Another guess is they will do feather bulls of shot Barred Owls which will yield sex, species info, etc.
Without the Spotted Owls, how will we know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
All owls and hawks are magnificient sons of bitches. Watch one try to kill a teacup terrier named Tiramuso and tell me you wouldn't reach for a gun.
My dogs kill all sorts of wildlife, some practically their size. They slink inside when they hear an owl.
I just hope a traffic helicopter never has engine problems and has to land in the field, because they are the ultimate enemy.
"This kind of micromanaging of the environment rarely ends well."
What? You don't think the government knows the correct number of each species that should inhabit every particular habitat?
No doubt, next thing you'll be saying is that the government doesn't really know the correct temperature for the Earth and how to keep it at the level.
"Barred owls started making their way west in the early 1900s as European settlers transformed the Midwest landscape from prairie to patches of woodland...."
Barred owls like woods. That's where they hang out. The relevant human-caused transformation was from vast areas of forest - like southern Minnesota's storied Big Woods - to farmland with small patches of woods. The prairie had nothing to do with anything related to barred owls.
iowan2,
Isn't that a barred owl as your image/avatar?
If barred owls didn't want to be barred they should have chosen a different name.
Tina Trent said...
“All owls and hawks are magnificient sons of bitches. Watch one try to kill a teacup terrier named Tiramuso and tell me you wouldn't reach for a gun.”
Bad move by the raptor. Everyone knows you reach for the cannoli first.
And my love for tiramisu is second to nobody’s.
"Barred owls started making their way west in the early 1900s as European settlers transformed the Midwest landscape from prairie to patches of woodland."
Elsewhere, one reads that European settlers destroyed woodlands. You, know- the ones Native Americans so lovingly cared for.
Killing one dog is a tragedy. Killing a half million birds is a statistic.
We've had barred owls in the trees around our house for the last 15-20 years. They're wonderful.
I can guarantee nobody will be shooting them even if they want to.
Sometimes the arrogance of man is astounding. Who in the hell are these people picking and choosing which species should live or die?
This won’t work. It’s nearly impossible to hunt out a single species in a defined region in a wilderness area. Moreover, Barred owls are going to be hard to hunt, they are nocturnal and are very good at hiding (roosting in dense pine trees) during the day. At night it will be hard to distinguish a barred owl from a spotted owl. And owl hunting isn’t a thing most hunters are interested in doing compared to say wolf or bear hunting.
Michelle,
Yes I do believe it is the Bard.
On the way to somewhere else we pulled into a conservation area along the Mississippi.
They just happened to be presenting a show with raptors. Bald Eagle, Vulture, Falcon, couple of Owls. I have an interest in these birds. Not a studied interest, more dabble. They are fascinating. The bald eagle with a wing span of about 8 feet, only weighs 10-12 lbs
Logging ended the Passenger Pigeon.
Rusty,
Logging ended the Passenger Pigeon.
No, it didn't. Extreme hunting ended the passenger pigeon. There used to be huge flocks -- tens of thousands of birds -- and hunters would just go find one and shoot into the air. After a while, they became smaller and rarer, and hunters, connected now to radio, would alert one another and converge on them.
The last passenger pigeon, named Martha, died in captivity in 1914.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
Nope.
At the same time the Passenger pigion was being hunted its nesting habitat was being cut down.Passenger pigions nested in mature old growth pines in our northern arboreal forests in Mich. Wisc. and Minn. Passenger pigions laid one, at times two, viable eggs. At the same time that their habitat was being reduced to rebuild Chicago and provide lumber for our westward expansion there was a blight of southern American hickory trees. Hickory nuts being their favorite food. Once thier nesting habitat was gone it was just a matter of time before they became extinct.
The University of Wisconsin did a study on Mourning Doves. They wanted to determine if Wisconsin could have a Morning Dove hunting season. What they found out was interesting. Mourning dove are prolific as hell. On any giving year half the population of Mourning Doves is predated by hunters or other wildlife. The next year their numbers are back. There are very few years where the numbers are significantly less than the year before.
Had our northern forrests not been logged we'd have passenger pigions today.
My Passenger Pigion information comes from a study also done by the University of Wisconsin.
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