A plan to shoot 450,000 owls — to save a different owl — could be in jeopardy

Los Angeles Times ^ | July 19, 2025 | Lila Seidman

[artichokegrower]

Federal wildlife officials approved a plan last year to protect northern spotted owls by shooting other owls, but it has faced pushback from animal rights advocates and lawmakers — including conservatives. Now lawmakers could kill the plan. An unusual alliance of Republican lawmakers and animal rights advocates, together with others, is creating storm clouds for a plan to protect one threatened owl by killing a more common one.

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TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: owls; wildlife

[artichokegrower]

Federal wildlife officials and some conservationists consider barred owls invasive.

As Europeans settled the Great Plains, they suppressed fire and planted trees, allowing barred owls to expand westward from their origin in eastern North America, biologists believe.

Colonizer owls

[Bulwinkle]

There is no such thing as “ the northern spotted owl”…. There are spotted owls, some live north some live south. No separate species

[No name given]

Exactly.

[LibertyWoman]

Only government can come up with such destruction and claim it is to ‘save’ something.

Here in Missouri (and I assume some other neighboring states) the ‘Conservation’ advocates and kills herds of White Tail deer ‘if’ one of hundreds in a particular county have CWD. Utter insanity

[Paladin2]

Why not just cut down some trees?

[artichokegrower]

Here on the California Central Coast federal Fish and Wildlife killed all of the nonnative red foxes. We farmers were up to our fannies in gophers, vole and squirrels in a couple of years

[dynachrome]

Tastes like chicken?

[mowowie]

Who are we to interfere with the balance of nature?

[wardaddy]

My fav bird
Shamey

[TigersEye]

What happened to letting nature balance itself?

If it is the karma of the Spotted Owl to go extinct the best these do-gooders can accomplish is to extend the time frame for a short time.

[rdcbn1]

This is about changing the plains landscape habitat from barren grass land favorable to one type of owls to forested habitat favorable to another type of owl.

So the solution, of course, is to kill half a million of the new owls living in their preferred habitat so the old owls can live in forests they are not adapted to instead of their plains habitat.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Looks like I need to apply for a government job.

Problem is , what happens if the reason the spotted owls are not as numerous as they once were is because they can't survive in a forest ecosystem but we kill all the barred owls that can.

[wardaddy]

https://youtu.be/RnrgTgA74TY?si=3tXtobyrwbSbw6WF

Cute vid

[Ronaldus Magnus III]

As usual, I am reminded of El Rush-Bo and the story of the spotted owl taking up residence in the Kmart sign.

Here is Rush from 2007:

“””remember two weeks ago we told you that the northern spotted owl was back in the news, back in trouble, and the numbers of pairs of northern spotted owls is continuing to dwindle out there? Despite all of the preservation of pristine, old-growth forests, where we were told for years in the eighties and nineties, that only there could the spotted owl thrive. If it didn’t have pristine, old-growth forest, why, it would die out — despite the fact that pictures of them living in the red K in the Kmart sign were all over the place.”””

Here is the link to the entire transcript:

https://admin.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2007/06/27/the_tahoe_fire_the_spotted_owl/

[E. Pluribus Unum]

https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1947092229287288852

"...Spotted owls primarily thrive in old-growth forests with dense canopies, which provide ideal conditions for their nesting and hunting. Barred owls, originally from eastern North America, have expanded westward, likely due to human-induced changes like fire suppression and landscape alterations, which created more favorable conditions for them. Barred owls are more adaptable, tolerate a wider range of habitats (including younger forests and mixed woodlands), and are more aggressive, often displacing spotted owls through competition for food and territory or even direct conflict...

[lurk]

You know what, birds have a way of managing their own populations without man’s help. We always think we know better.

[CapandBall]

Owl World: Bloods vs Crops
Let ‘em fight…

[frank ballenger]

RE: Why not just cut down some trees?

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Trees 🌳

By Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree. 🌳

[frank ballenger]

Great memory. Thanks for the Rush reference.

[Verginius Rufus]

Sgt. Joyce Kilmer was killed in action on July 30, 1918, on the Western front.

I don't know if it is still read in schools (it has nothing to do with race, gender or class) but traditionally I think grade-school and high school teachers thought it was a great poem. But my first literature professor in college thought it was awful.

[Redcitizen]

450,000 dead owls means a large increase in population of mice and other vermin that normally would get eaten by owls.

Did anyone think about that?