barred owl – Conservation Sense and Nonsense

For US Fish & Wildlife Service “Management” Means Killing

“It makes me sad, but range expansions are a part of natural systems. We just happened to be watching when one occurred. Even if [we’re to blame], we’re probably going to have to live with it.”
Eric Forsman, US Forest Service

US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposes to kill 470,000 barred owls in the next 30 years in an effort to save the northern spotted owl (NSO) and a closely related sub-species in California. The deadline for making a comment on this proposal is January 16, 2024. Instructions for making comments are available HERE.

Today, I will tell you about this proposal, how it came about, and why I am opposed to the proposal. I provide links to the source documents so you can read them yourself. I hope this information will help you reach your own conclusions about the plan and submit a public comment.

USFWS Barred Owl Management Strategy

The purpose of the Barred Owl Management Strategy is protection for the dwindling population of northern spotted owls (NSO) in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, and Northern California). NSOs were classified as a threatened species by USFWS in 1990. The first Recovery Plan for NSO, published in 2011, identified habitat loss and barred owls as the primary threats to NSOs. The most recent Recovery Plan has added “past habitat loss, continued timber harvest, and wildfire” to the list of threats to NSOs.

The Barred Owl Management Strategy also proposes “management” of barred owls to protect the California spotted owl (CSO), which is a subspecies of NSOs. Although endangered status for CSO was proposed in February 2023, endangered status has not been granted. Yet, USFWS proposes to extend the same lethal removal measures used to protect NSOs to CSOs. In addition to the threats to NSOs, California spotted owls are also threatened by fragmented habitat and forest mortality caused by drought and correlated disease, which have killed over 300 million conifers in California in the past 10 years.

*Source: Barred Owl Management Strategy*

Despite the many threats to spotted owls, the Management Strategy intended to protect them addresses only one of those threats: barred owls. It makes no proposals for improving or expanding habitat or addressing the impact of climate change on forests.

The Barred Owl Management Strategy is a voluntary plan. Federal agencies in spotted owl territory (Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, and National Park Service) will be “encouraged” to implement the plan. If state, commercial, private property, and tribal land owners choose to participate they will be granted the same “take” permits required by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that federal land managers will be granted, so long as they agree to follow the protocol for “removing” barred owls from their properties.

The word “removal” in the context of the Management Strategy means “lethal removal.” The protocol requires that barred owls be found by playing a recording of their distinctive call (described as “who cooks for you?”) and shooting the owl as it flies toward the call and the shooter. If guns are not allowed where barred owls are found, they must be captured and euthanized. Hybrids of barred owls and spotted owls will also be killed, despite the fact that accurately identifying hybrids is considered difficult, particularly in subsequent generations.

Because the Management Strategy is not mandatory, the total number of birds that will be killed can only be estimated. If all property managers choose to implement the Strategy, approximately 470,000 barred owls would be killed in the next 30 years. Although the Strategy covers only a 30 year time frame, “barred owl management will be required at same level for the long term” because “Their populations will continue to produce young that can disperse within and beyond the current range of barred owls.” (1) The estimated current population of barred owls in study areas of the Management Strategy is only 102,000. Clearly the lethal removal of barred owls is not expected to keep pace with the reproductive success of barred owls. The killing of barred owls will continue forever, although there is no expectation that they will be eliminated.

*Source: Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Barred Owl Management Strategy*

How were barred owls selected as the scapegoat?

When northern spotted owls were designated as “threatened” in 1990 it triggered the legal protections conferred by the Endangered Species Act. In 1994, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management published the EIS for the Northwest Forest Plan. It created 24 million acres of reserve areas where logging was prohibited to preserve spotted owl habitat. The reserve areas protected approximately 80 percent of the remaining old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest from timber harvesting. Obviously, the plan had a negative impact on the timber industry and those who were employed by the industry. Between 1980 and 1998, 23% of logging jobs were lost, triggering the Timber Wars.

The rate of decline of spotted owl populations in the Pacific Northwest decreased when most logging in old-growth forest was stopped by the Northwest Forest Plan, but began to accelerate again in about 2008. USFWS attributes that increase in the rate of population decline to competition from barred owls and that theory is supported by several studies.

Barred Owl. GNU Free Documentation License

Barred owls are native to North America. They have been migrating from their historic range in the north and south east of the US to the west coast of North America since about 1900. Barred owls were first seen on the west coast of North America in British Columbia, Canada around 1959. They were first documented in Washington in the 1970s and have continued moving south from there.

Barred owls have successfully competed with spotted owls in their expanding territory because they are larger than spotted owls, they eat a wider variety of prey, they have greater reproductive success, and they are able to live in forests where spotted owls cannot. Spotted owls are restricted to old-growth forests with large trees and dense canopies, while barred owls often live in second-growth (previously logged) forests and even wooded urban areas.

The Management Strategy speculates that the omnivorous diet of barred owls will devastate the food webs in the new territory they occupy, although the Strategy offers no evidence to support that theory. In fact, as barred owls expanded their territory through the Canadian boreal forest, such devastation was not reported. Barred owls are not considered “invasive” in Canada.

The impact of barred owls on spotted owls was first observed by Lowell Diller, a wildlife biologist who worked as a consultant to Green Diamond Resource Co., a logging company managing timberland in Humboldt and Del Norte counties in Northern California. Mr. Diller was also an adjunct professor in the Department of Wildlife at Humboldt State University.

Owls, including barred owls, are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Mr. Diller applied for permits to kill barred owls on the property of Green Diamond Resource Co. as an experiment to determine the impact of barred owls on spotted owls. He described his project in an article in the Marin Independent Journal: “In 2009,…Diller set aside patches of timberland to remove barred owls. In other patches, he did nothing. After four years, he would see how northern spotted owl numbers differed in the areas with and without barred owls…The study is the first to prove his treatment works.” To be clear, his “treatment” was to shoot barred owls. Mr. Diller also described how upsetting it was to kill birds.

Green Diamond applied for permits and has continued to kill barred owls on its property. That commitment has ensured that Green Diamond’s current rate of logging can continue. The Green Diamond spokesman explained: “’When you can protect and sustain a business and jobs and also conserve the northern spotted owl,’ he said, ‘why not do it.’” (Marin Independent Journal)

Sierra Pacific Industries is also killing barred owls on its property. Sierra Pacific Industries in Shasta County is the largest private land holder in California and the second largest lumber producer in America.

On the basis of the success of Diller’s study, USFWS approved a pilot project to kill barred owls in other places where spotted owls live. The pilot project killed about 3,000 barred owls. When the project was completed in 2021, they reported, “The removal of barred owls had a strong, positive effect on the survival of northern spotted owls and a positive, but weaker, effect on recruitment of spotted owls.” (2) The Barred Owl Management Strategy is based on the success of the pilot study.

In other words, killing barred owls has enabled the timber industry in Northern California to continue their logging operations. It has also removed the pressure to expand reserve areas to protect spotted owls, even though many scientists believe such expansion would be more effective than killing barred owls to save spotted owls: “’The bottom line is that extinction rates went down when the amount of habitat went up,’ U.S. Geological Survey biologist Katie Dugger, lead author of the 2015 demographic study, said in a presentation on the findings last fall. ‘Spotted Owls cannot exist without old-growth forest. And now we’re talking about two species trying to use the same space, so in fact we need more of it.’” (3)

Specific Flaws in Barred Owl Management Strategy

The Barred Owl Management Strategy is based on several outdated notions about nature that have been cast in the concrete of American law. The Endangered Species Act is based on assumptions about nature that were conventional wisdom at the time the law was passed 50 years ago, in 1973. Evolution was considered a series of events that occurred in the distant past and is no longer actively changing plants and animals. At the time the ESA was passed, evolution was not believed to occur within a time frame observable by humans. Nature was perceived as reaching an “equilibrium state” that was stable over long periods of time. Early conservation efforts were therefore based on the assumption that once achieved, an equilibrium state could be sustained if left undisturbed in nature preserves. (4)

We now know that these assumptions are mistaken. In the past 50 years, climate change and advances in paleontology have taught us that nature is inherently dynamic and we are usually powerless to stop it from changing even when we try. When a law is designed to control nature, we should expect some conflict between static law and dynamic nature. Fifty years after the Endangered Species Act was passed, that conflict is becoming progressively more apparent and problematic.

These are the specific flaws in the Barred Owl Management Strategy that are the result of mistaken assumptions about nature:

Barred owls should not be considered “invasive” on the west coast of the US because the expansion of its range is a natural phenomenon that cannot and should not be stopped.

USFWS designates barred owls on the west coast as “invasive” by fabricating a story about the route barred owls took from their historic range in the east to their expanded range in the west that is not consistent with the facts. Although USFWS admits that the route that facilitated expansion is “not well documented,” they claim there is evidence of anthropogenic change across the Midwestern Prairie that supports that specific route: “…the historical lack of trees in the Great Plains acted as a barrier to the range expansion and that increases in forest caused by the anthropogenic impact of European settlement enabled the westward extension of the barred owl range. These include anthropogenic impacts such as fire exclusion and suppression, bison and beaver extirpation, deer and elk overhunting, establishment of riparian forests, and extensive planting of trees and shelterbelts in the northern Great Plains…” (2) Although that is an accurate description of anthropogenic changes in the Midwestern Prairie, it is irrelevant to the expansion of the range of barred owls, because that wasn’t the route they took to the west coast.

The legal definition of invasive species enables USFWS to designate barred owls on the west coast as “invasive” based on their claim that the expansion route was through the American Midwest as a result of anthropogenic change. If non-indigenous humans are considered the cause of a change in ranges of plants and animals, the species is considered “invasive” where it did not exist prior to the arrival of Europeans. Labelling any plant or animal “invasive” makes it a target for eradication. However, the theory of a midwestern expansion route for barred owls is not consistent with the facts:

This map clearly shows that the route used by barred owls to expand their range to the west coast was through the boreal forests of Canada, which were not the result of anthropogenic change. The boreal forests of Canada have existed since the Ice Age ended 10,000 years ago. The map does not show the historic or current existence of barred owls in the American Midwest.

The expansion route of barred owls to the west coast through Canadian forests is also consistent with the record of their arrival on the west coast. They were seen first in the west in 1959 in British Columbia, Canada, at the northern edge of their current range. They were first seen in the US in Washington in the 1970s. Their range expansion continues to the south. This sequence of events is not consistent with the claim that they arrived on the west coast via the American Midwest.

Claiming that barred owls are “invasive” enables USFWS to justify their extermination, as many of their eradication projects do: “Yes, wildlife removal has been used as a management tool by many agencies across the country to control invasive species such as invasive carp, Burmese python, feral hogs, rats, mongoose, and nutria. Invasive species can thrive in areas where they do not naturally occur.” (1) That list of animals being killed by USFWS is far from complete.

This is not a trivial matter. Climate change requires that plants and animals move to find the conditions needed for their survival. Preventing the migration of plants and animals as the climate and the environment change will doom them to extinction. Designating barred owls on the west coast “invasive” has dangerous implications for many plants and animals that must move to survive in a rapidly changing climate. The Management Strategy should not set this dangerous precedent.

Interbreeding of spotted owls and barred owls is a natural phenomenon that cannot and should not be stopped. Hybrids of spotted and barred owls should not be killed.

Hybridization is not only common, it can result in the creation of new species more rapidly than other forces of evolution, such as mutation and natural selection: “Hybridisation also offers shortcuts on the long march to speciation that do not depend on natural selection at all.” (5)

More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, are estimated to have died out. Yet there are currently around 8.7 million species of eukaryote (organisms whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus) globally. (Wikipedia) Biodiversity on Earth has increased partly because of hybridization, which has often enabled adaptation to changed environmental conditions.

There are many important examples of hybridization among animal species, most notably the history of hybridization of our species, Homo sapiens. Humans are now the sole surviving species of genus Homo. Our genome contains the relicts of the genes of other members of our genus that are now extinct, which indicates hybridization with other hominoid species. The modern human genome contains 1-4% of Neanderthal genes. (5)

There are also many examples of hybridization of plant species that contributed to biodiversity. In a recently published study of the evolution of oaks, scientists traced the 56 million year evolutionary history of roughly 435 species of oak across 5 continents where they are found today. Hybridization was instrumental in the formation of oak species and the ability of oaks to survive in different climate conditions. The article in Scientific American about the genetic study of oak species concludes: “A firm grasp of when, where and how oaks came to be so diverse is crucial to understanding how oaks will resist and adapt to rapidly changing environments. Oaks migrated rapidly as continental glaciers receded starting around 20,000 years ago, and hybridization between species appears to have been key to their rapid response. The insights we can gain from elucidating the adaptive benefits of gene flow are critical to predicting how resilient oaks may be as climate change exposes them to fungal and insect diseases with which they did not evolve.”

The bias against hybrids is a reflection of nativist ideology in the natural world. Nativists call hybridization “genetic pollution.” Unfortunately, hybridization is seen by nativists as the loss of a “pure” native species rather than the potential for a new species that is better adapted to changing environmental conditions. The proposal to kill hybrids of barred and spotted owls is a symptom of the nativist bias that is typical of most public agencies.

Barred and spotted owls are closely related. They are in the same genus, just as Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were in the same genus. Their interbreeding is both predictable and potentially beneficial to spotted owls because barred owls are better adapted to current conditions. The hybrid has the potential to produce a new species that is better adapted to compromised forest conditions than the spotted owl. Although there is risk in hybrids, in the case of spotted owls the risk is worth taking because many scientists predict that the northern spotted owl will soon be extinct. Hybridization may be more helpful to the spotted owl species than killing barred owls.

The Barred Owl Management Strategy should not be extended to California spotted owls.

The Barred Owl Management Strategy depends on the legal protections of the Endangered Species Act. Both barred owls and spotted owls are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Therefore, “take” permits must be granted to kill barred owls. The protected status of northern spotted owls justifies take permits, but should not be extended to California spotted owls (CSO) that are not legally protected. Issuing take permits to kill barred owls to save California spotted owls makes a mockery of both the ESA and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It implies that USFWS can find loopholes in environmental laws intended to protect nature, whenever they wish. It undermines the public’s faith in government when public agencies are perceived as arbitrary and capricious.

Killing barred owls in CSO territory cannot be justified because there are few barred owls in their territory and threats to the CSO population are unrelated to the existence of a few barred owls. (See map of barred owl distribution in California below.) Shooting barred owls will not stop the wildfires, droughts and diseases killing their habitat. The proposed Management Strategy is irrelevant to the survival of CSO.

*Source:* *Spotted Owl Observation Database, California Department Fish and Wildlife, 2019*

There is no reason to kill barred owls in Marin and Sonoma counties in the San Francisco Bay Area because the population of Northern Spotted Owls is stable and there are very few barred owls.

The Marin/Sonoma County Management Zone designated by the Management Strategy includes all lands within the named counties. Conditions in Marin and Sonoma County are substantially different from the rest of the northern spotted owl range. This is the only portion of the northern spotted owl range where barred owls are very uncommon.

The recently completed survey of northern spotted owls in Marin County reports that the population is stable. The survey found nesting pairs of NSOs in all 48 inventory sites. A small decline in nesting success was not statistically significant. Two unpaired barred owls were detected on or near Marin County Property or Marin Watershed Property in 2023. One was removed, the other was not detected a second time. (6)

*Source:* Northern Spotted Owl Monitoring on Marin County Parks and Marin Municipal Water Department lands, 2023 Report, Point Blue Conservation.

Despite the lack of evidence that northern spotted owls are threatened by barred owls in Marin County, the Barred Owl Management Strategy considers it the highest priority to kill the few transitory barred owls detected in Marin County. This is unnecessary overkill that should be removed from the Management Strategy. It contributes to the public’s perception that the strategy of USFWS is extreme and inconsistent with environmental laws that protect nature.

In conclusion, the Barred Owl Management Strategy is a reflection of the extreme nativist bias of USFWS. Like many of their projects, USFWS has selected an animal scapegoat for the declining population of northern spotted owls that are not well adapted to changed forest conditions. Selecting an animal scapegoat enables timber companies to continue logging and it is an easy way to avoid addressing the much more complex reasons for challenges to northern spotted owls. For example, killing barred owls won’t do anything to reduce the greenhouse gases causing climate change or restore logged or burned forests. The Barred Owl Management Strategy will employ an army of snipers, but is unlikely to benefit the environment or its inhabitants. USFWS cannot stop evolution, nor should it try.

Although I have low expectations that 2024 will be more peaceful than last year, in the spirit of hope, I wish you Happy New Year. Thank you for your readership.

Update, July 2025: The Northwest Forest Plan has been amended. The amendment to the plan will enable more logging in the Pacific Northwest. Https://www.chronline.com/stories/proposed-changes-would-allow-more-logging-on-federal-land-in-the-pacific-northwest,372393

The amendment began during the Biden administration and was approved in May 2025. The point of the amendment is to “manage” the forest to reduce wildfire hazards. https://www.fs.usda.gov/r06/planning/northwest-forest-plan-amendment

The stated purposed of the USFWS plan to kill 500,000 barred owls was to save endangered spotted owls. The plan was created by the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest because killing barred owls on their properties enabled them to get permits needed to continue logging on their properties.

On October 30, 2025, the US Senate rejected an effort to halt the implementation of the Barred Owl Management Plan by a vote of 25-72: https://worldanimalnews.com/2025/10/30/stop-the-slaughter-450000-barred-owls-face-mass-killing-for-so-called-conservation/

However, The Trump administration has also cancelled some grants that funded the plan to kill barred owls in the Pacific Northwest: https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2025/07/22/plans-to-shoot-thousands-of-barred-owls-in-doubt-after-feds-cancel-grants/

Confusing, isn’t it? The plan lives, but some of the funding for implementation is gone. That’s my best guess.

There is some logic to this sequence of events. However, I doubt that logic was used to reach this conclusion. In any case, I am pleased that barred owls will be spared the planned massacre. However, the loss of federal funding to kill barred owls will not prevent private land owners from killing barred owls. The revision of the Northwest Forest Plan to enable more logging might make killing barred owls on private land unnecessary.

Barred owls in the cross-hairs of “restorationists”

There is a community of birders in Central Park in New York City who are famous around the country because the New York Times often reports on significant events in their community. If you are a birder you know that the arrival of a rare bird in your vicinity generates a lot of excitement. In the case of the barred owl, its arrival in Central Park was such an event. Ironically, elsewhere in the country, the barred owl isn’t unusual because it is a species that is rapidly expanding its range and becoming a target for eradication where it is perceived as an “invader.” The article in the New York Times was oblivious to this irony, so I took on the task of telling NYT readers about it. Here is the dialogue that my comment generated in NYT.

[My Comment]
Oakland, CA Nov. 17

Barred owls are expanding their range. Good thing this barred owl didn’t show up here in the San Francisco Bay Area where barred owls are being shot because they are considered competitors with a rare, legally protected bird. The legally protected owl is so rare that logging was stopped in many western forests. The timber industry figured out how to place the blame on the barred owl. They hired someone to conduct a study to prove that the mere presence of the barred owl was correlated with the dwindling population of the rare owl. The study resulted in a program to shoot barred owls and the timber industry was once again allowed to log in the forests where the rare owl used to live. Here on the west coast, barred owls are one of the scapegoats that enable the fiction that endangered species are being protected. [1]

[Response]
Vancouver, BC

The “rare owl” is the Spotted Owl. When mates are scarce it will actually interbreed with the Barred Owl – another threat to its continued existence. Of course the scarcity of the Spotted Owl is human-caused as you point out – the presence of Barred Owls just accelerates their disappearance

[My First Reply]
Oakland, CA Nov. 17

Yes, I know the species that is legally protected. Ironically, spotted owls would benefit greatly by hybridizing with barred owls because it is a hardier species. Hybridization is a natural, evolutionary process that often improves the survivability of the species that are breeding with more common species in order to breed. Advances in molecular analysis are reporting that hybridization is more common than previously thought and that it results in better adaptation to the environment, increasing chances for survival. Nativist attempts to prevent hybridization is futile and harmful. We can’t stop evolution, nor should we try,

[Second Response]
Vancouver, BC Nov. 17

You didn’t originally mention what the “rare owl” is called. Other people might like to know what you were talking about. Extensive hybridization with a far more numerous species will not “strengthen” the spotted owl as a species. On the contrary it will lead to the disappearance of the spotted owl as a separate species, as its genetics are swamped by those of the larger population. That’s what happened to the southeastern Red Wolf in the 1960s – when their numbers dropped very low, they began mating with coyotes, the last act in their genetic disappearance as a wolf species. “Nativism”, a political concept, has zero to do with this biological phenomenon. You say, “Hybridization is a natural, evolutionary process that often improves the survivability of the species” Well yes, in the face of human disturbance and habitat destruction, animals better adapted to the disturbed/replaced habitat will survive better… but the more sensitive species may eventually disappear, one way or another. Pigeons and rats are models of survivability – they’re highly adapted to commensal life with people – they thrive in human-altered landscapes. I wouldn’t casually class human-caused extinction as “evolution”, i.e. as a natural phenomenon and no cause for concern.

[My Second Reply]
Oakland, CA Nov. 17

The expanding range of barred owls is not caused by humans. It is also a natural phenomenon. The purpose of shooting barred owls is to enable the continued timber harvesting in the forests where spotted owls lived in the past. In other words, if “natural” processes are your goal, you might want to start by stopping the harvesting of the forests that spotted owls lived in. Spotted owls are choosing barred owls as their breeding partners. What’s more “natural” than that? Here is an article in Economist Magazine about the evolutionary value of hybridization: The Economist, “Match and mix, hybrids and evolution,” October 3-9, 2020, page 67-70. It’s not an idea that originates with me. Many articles like it are based on molecular analysis that traces the evolutionary history of hybridization for 500 million years of life on Earth.

You say, “’Nativism’, a political concept, has zero to do with this biological phenomenon.” I disagree. Nativism begins with a human prejudice against plants and animals (including humans) perceived as foreign. It becomes political when it becomes government policy and law, as it has in the case of shooting barred owls. That program was initiated and administered by US Fish and Wildlife. Likewise, attempts to abolish all forms of human immigration to the US is a policy of the federal government. I seem to have attracted the attention of members or admirers of the “restoration” industry. I’m glad. You should know that your deadly projects are not universally admired. They are misguided and they are usually based on specious reasoning masquerading as “science.” When they kill animals and use pesticides to kill plants, they are damaging the environment and the animals that live in it.

[Another Responder Steps in]
Bloomfield, NJ Nov. 18

Barred owls moved north and west in the late 20th century because of the forestation of what was historically prairie and other treeless habitats. That’s about as clearly “caused by humans” as anything.

[And receives assistance from Vermont]
Middlebury, VT Nov. 18

Yellow Barred Owls only occur on the West Coast because Europeans planted trees across the great plains as windbreaks and parkland, allowing the owls to spread across the formerly treeless region. Prior to that, the species was confined to the East Coast–their expansion to the Pacific is entirely the result of human interferance in the ecosystem. They should not be in the West and their removal, along with strong habitat protection, is the best hope for the Northern Spotted Owl to survive as a species.

[I got the last word]
Oakland, CA Nov. 18

The forests in which barred owls live along the West Coast were not planted. They are native conifer forests. As for pre-settlement prairie now occupied by forests, they are the result of natural succession from grassland to shrubland and ultimately forests in the absence of indigenous burning and grazing by native ungulates. They weren’t planted either. In the view of the “restoration” industry, natural processes such as succession, hybridization, and evolution are not consistent with the goal of re-creating a pre-settlement landscape. It’s a fool’s errand, even in the absence of a rapidly changing climate which makes it delusional. The only thing constant about nature is change. There’s nothing natural about humans killing animals they have decided “don’t belong there.”

According to this map of barred owl distribution, the route the barred owl took from the East to the West Coast was via the boreal forests of Canada. Source: Cornell Ornithology Lab

Addendum: The barred owl is the pin-up photo for the January page of Audubon’s 2021 calendar. Here’s what Audubon says about the conservation status of the barred owl: “The rich baritone hooting of the Barred Owl is a characteristic sound – one that some birders may already hear less of due to loss of parts of the bird’s southern swamp habitat to climate-related threats, including wildfires, spring heat waves, and urbanization. Audubon is passing clean energy legislation in the South, including landmark solar energy bills in Arkansas and South Carolina, ensuring a healthier future for these states and birds, like the Barred Owl, that depend on them.”

We often find contradictions between the national policies of environmental organizations such as Audubon and their local chapters. In this case local Audubon chapters are actively engaged in shooting barred owls that are expanding their range into cooler, northern climates, while the national organization understands that the barred owl must change its range to survive climate change. Well-meaning people often don’t have the big picture when making conservation decisions and they are resistant to changes in nature. The instinct seems to be to freeze nature into place. Nature won’t stand for that. January 2021

[1] Green Diamond Resource Co, a lumber company managing timberland in Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties, is the author of the plan to “manage” barred owls in their forests. (“Managing” or “removing” barred owls is the euphemism used to describe the killing of barred owls by shooting them.) Lowell Diller, a biologist and contractor for the Green Diamond Resource Co., was responsible for the “study” that resulted in the “management” plan. He designed the study and literally executed it by shooting barred owls. When interviewed by the Bay Area News Group, Green Diamond Resource Co. explained, “When you can protect and sustain a business and jobs and also conserve the northern spotted owl,” he said, “why not do it?” (source: “California biologists shoot scores of bully owls to protect endangered spotted owls,” East Bay Times, August 15, 2016)

“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature”

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service recently announced that after a 25-year effort, they are finally giving up on the fantasy that they can relocate otters from the coast of California to one of the Channel Islands off the coast. From 1987 to 1991, they captured and relocated 140 otters in a futile attempt to create a “no-otter zone.” (1)

Only 40 otters remain near the Channel Islands. Fish & Wildlife claims that most of the otters returned to the coast. We’ll never know how many otters died in the process of relocation and subsequent repatriation. Clearly, even if they survived the pointless ordeal, they didn’t benefit from it.

Otters were nearly hunted to extinction because of their soft fur. Their population plummeted from 16,000 in the late 1700s to only 50 in the 1930s. They were listed by the Endangered Species Act as a threatened species in 1977 and their population has stabilized at about 2,800.

Because of their status as a legally protected species, U.S. Fish & Wildlife decided to move them based on their belief that they would be safer. They claimed to be concerned that the otters might be harmed by off-shore oil drilling. One wonders if their concern might have had more to do with the fishermen who say that otters are depriving them of their catch of abalone and sea urchins.

Fish & Wildlife published a study of their project in 2005, which acknowledged the failure of the effort, yet it took 7 years for them to get around to officially ending it.

Killing one animal to save another

Such attempts to control nature and the animals that live in it are the stock and trade of U.S. Fish & Wildlife as well as their colleagues in state agencies with a similar mission. Here are a couple of local examples.

The spotted owl was given endangered species status over 25 years ago. Logging was substantially reduced in the Pacific Northwest in an effort to save the habitat of the spotted owl, with devastating consequences for the timber-based economy. Despite that effort, the population of spotted owls declined over 40% in the past 25 years.

So, now US Fish & Wildlife has selected a new scapegoat for the decline of the spotted owl population. They have decided that another owl, the barred owl, is the culprit. The barred owl is larger and its range is apparently expanding. So, in its infinite wisdom, Fish & Wildlife recently announced that it will begin shooting barred owls where they don’t “belong” based on their assumption that the spotted owl will benefit from the removal of its competitor. (2)

Carpet bombing with rodenticides

As crazy as the plan to shoot barred owls is, here’s a plan that strikes us even worse. In April 2011, U.S. Fish & Wildlife announced its intention to evaluate a plan to aerial bomb the Farallon Islands off the coast of San Francisco with rodenticides to kill resident mice. (3)

Here’s their logic for this strategy: the mice are eaten by burrowing owls which don’t “belong” on the Farallones, in their opinion. They claim that they don’t want to kill the burrowing owls because they acknowledge that they are just as rare in their historic range as the birds they claim will be saved by this bizarre plan. They claim that when the burrowing owls eat all the mice, they start eating the eggs of the ashy storm petrel which is an equally rare bird, but it “belongs” on the Farallones, so its perceived needs trump those of the equally rare burrowing owl. They believe that if the mice are killed, the burrowing owls will return to where Fish & Wildlife believes they belong.

There is so much wrong with this plan that it’s difficult to know where to start. The Farallones are an important bird sanctuary, home to many species of birds many of which are rare. Can Fish & Wildlife guarantee that the burrowing owl is the only species of bird that will eat the poisoned mice? How many burrowing owls will die from eating the poisoned mice? If they don’t die, won’t they eat even more eggs of the storm petrel? Will the death of the mice deprive other species of birds of their food? As the rodenticide washes off the islands into the ocean, will it kill the marine life around the island? Will it enter the food web of the entire island, killing unintended targets such as the birds that eat fish?

As crazy as this plan sounds, it is not a new strategy for Fish & Wildlife. In 2008, 46 tons of rodenticides were dumped on an island in the Aleutian chain off the coast of Alaska. That carpet bombing is known to have killed a total of 420 birds, including 40 bald eagles. (4)

The outcry about the birds being killed by rodenticides has been getting louder recently. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a coalition of wildlife and public health advocates has asked California’s regulator of pesticides to take rosenticides off the market. We hope these pleas for sanity will be heeded before the Farallones are bombed with rodenticides.

Nature is on the move

Just as humans have moved around the Earth in search of more hospitable conditions—more food, better climate, less competition—animals have done the same. Now humans have decided that the animals must stay put. Wherever they existed in the historic past is where they “belong.” When animals move, man has decided they are “invasive” and they must be stopped.

Man’s war on invasive species is accelerating because as the climate changes there is greater pressure on animals to move to find the food and habitat they need and on plants to find suitable growing conditions. Humans are apparently unwilling or unable to do anything to stop climate change, yet they are willing and able to try to prevent plants and animals from adjusting to climate change.

As senseless as it seems to deprive plants and animals of their survival mechanisms, this harmful approach has been immortalized in U.S. law by the Endangered Species Act. The ESA is about 40 years old and was enacted at a time when the consequences of climate change were largely unknown. It defines endangered species as any plant or animal that becomes rare within its historic range. So, for example, if an animal or plant moves in response to climate change, it is often designated as an endangered species even though it may be plentiful in its new home to which it is better adapted. And Fish & Wildlife comes to its “rescue” by trying to force it to return to its historic range to which it is no longer adapted.

As we pondered this conundrum, we were reminded of a television commercial in 1970. Mother Nature is telling stories to her animal friends in the forest, when someone hands her a tub of margarine to taste. She smiles sweetly and congratulates herself on how delicious butter is. She is informed that it isn’t butter, but rather an artificial substitute. She rises from her throne, raises her voice to scold, shoots lightning from her fingers and warns us, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” (see this charming video here).

Will nature punish humans for their refusal to allow it to change as needed to survive? No, not literally, of course, but perhaps we will suffer the unintended consequences of our arrogant attempts to control natural processes we do not understand.

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(1) Peter Fimrite, “Feds scrap ‘dumb idea’ of relocating otters,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 18, 2012

(2) Associated Press, “U.S. plans to kill Barred owls to save spotted owls,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 29, 2012

(3) Kelly Zito, “Pesticide bombing of Farallones mice stirs debate,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 12, 2011

(4) Peter Fimrite, “Concern over fallout of bombing mice,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 17, 2011