A coalition of animal and wildlife advocacy groups submitted a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Monday to oppose a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan that would start a yearslong effort to shoot nonnative barred owls in the range of the northern spotted owl in Washington, Oregon and Northern California.
Along with habitat loss, the USFWS has identified competition from barred owls as a main threat to spotted owls. An in-the-works plan includes four alternatives that involve reducing the population of barred owls (plus a non-action alternative) by allowing agencies to lethally remove birds.
The letter, spearheaded by Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Wellness Action, said the plan is unworkable and “will cause severe disruptions to wildlife from the forest floor to its canopies,” including mistaken identity kills of other owls, disruption of nesting behavior, lead poisoning from bullets and impacts on other species in forests.
“Its adverse collateral effects would ripple throughout these forest habitats,” said the letter signed by Animal Wellness Action President Wayne Pacelle and Scott Edwards, general counsel for Center for a Humane Economy.
Notably absent from the letter’s signees are major environmental groups and those geographically close to the plan’s area. Tom Wheeler, executive director of Environmental Protection Information Center in Arcata, Calif., said the letter writers sought environmental groups’ support.
“We declined because we take ecosystem threats very seriously,” he said, emphasizing that environmental groups have studied the plan, worked with USFWS and concluded it will be beneficial to wildlife. He called the arguments listed in the letter “profoundly stupid” and arguing any short-term impacts to wildlife will be less impactful to native wildlife than doing nothing at all. Wheeler said the spread of barred owls threatens both spotted owls and the ecosystem at large. Instead, the letter supporters mostly garnered support from animal rights groups.
The expansion in the range of barred owls in recent years has prompted worry for the USFWS, who noted in the plan that the spread of the owl has a track record of impacting the threatened spotted owl.
“While barred owls have not substantially impacted California spotted owl populations to date, the establishment of a small barred owl population in the northern Sierra Nevada, and the history of the invasion and impacts on northern spotted owls following such expansion, indicates that barred owls are a significant threat to the persistence of California spotted owls,” the USFWS plan states.
The controversy in the plan surrounds the killing of birds that people tend to think are quite cute. Wheeler, a vegan, argued that by stopping the spread of the owl relatively early, like the plan outlines, fewer owls would be killed overall than if barred owls were allowed to continue to spread.
USFWS tested removal with Hoopa Tribal Forestry and Green Diamond Resource in a study. The USFWS said in the treatment areas where barred owls were removed, spotted owl populations stabilized after three to six years of removal.
The public comment period has ended for the plan.