The survival of one owl species hinges on the demise of another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service argues in its proposal to allow the agency to shoot hundreds of thousands of barred owls over the next 30 years in West Coast forests. The service says the barred owl, which is not native to the region, is crowding out the spotted owl, a close genetic relative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without action against the barred owls, service biologists say the spotted owl could disappear from parts of Washington and Oregon within a few years and eventually go extinct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The proposal<\/a> is the latest in a series of efforts to save the spotted owl, whose decline became a rallying point for environmentalists opposed to logging in the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Human influence \u2014 as European settlers spread west \u2014 likely caused the barred owl to colonize the Pacific Northwest. Now, the proposal raises questions about how far people should go to save a species and the costs of righting a historic ecological wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the barred owls\u2019 fault. It\u2019s our fault for bringing them out here. It\u2019s not the spotted owls\u2019 fault either,\u201d said Robin Brown, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who is the agency\u2019s barred owl strategy lead. \u201cThe species\u2019 future is extinction if we don\u2019t manage barred owls. The writing is on the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The agency\u2019s proposal, which calls for a total of more than 470,000 barred owls to be \u201clethally removed\u201d \u2014 killed with shotguns \u2014 remains in draft form and is open for public comment through Jan. 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An undiscriminating eye might struggle to tell spotted and barred owls apart. Both have pale faces and brown-and-white mottled coats. They are in the same genus. Before the 20th century, a major differentiating factor was where they lived: the barred owl in the Eastern U.S. and the spotted owl in the forests of the U.S. West. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the barred owl is slightly bigger, quicker to reproduce, more aggressive and less discriminating about where it makes its home and what it eats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spotted owl populations have declined by about 75% in the past two decades and continue to decline about 5% each year, largely because of barred owls, according to an environmental impact statement describing the USFWS proposal. The proposal says there are more than 100,000 barred owls in forests on the West Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey come into these areas. They reach high densities. They\u2019re basically eating everything and competing with spotted owls for food,\u201d said David Wiens, a supervisory research wildlife biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The USFWS’ proposed management plan<\/a> calls for killing barred owls across about one-third of the spotted owl range in Washington, Oregon and California over three decades. The plan would remove the barred owl from 1%-2% of its current range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crews of trained shooters would broadcast an owl call, attracting those nearby. Then, equipped with spotlights and shotguns, they would kill the birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSpotted versus barred<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n