spotted owl

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To Save One Kind of Owl, Death to 450K Others

FWS plans to cull 450K barred owls so that the spotted owl can compete for habitat

(Newser) - To save the imperiled spotted owl from potential extinction, US wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls that are crowding out their smaller cousins. The US Fish and Wildlife Service strategy released Wednesday is...

Saving One Type of Owl May Require Shooting Another

Cull on barred owls could keep spotted owl from going extinct in Northwest, says federal agency

(Newser) - Despite pushback over its experimental killing of thousands of barred owls, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed shooting many, many more: about 400,000 over 30 years. It's all in an effort to save another owl species at risk of extinction. Populations of the northern spotted owl...

Thousands of Owls Killed in Controversial US Experiment

The federal government has been trying to save the northern spotted owl for decades

(Newser) - As he stood amid the thick old-growth forests in the coastal range of Oregon, Dave Wiens was nervous. Before he trained to shoot his first barred owl, he had never fired a gun. He eyed the big female owl, her feathers streaked brown and white, perched on a branch at...

To Save Owls, Gov't Wants to ... Kill Owls

Barred owls are a rival to the threatened spotted owl

(Newser) - The Obama administration is trying to save the spotted owl, but bailing out the endangered critter might just involve the premeditated demise of someone sitting on the family tree: The larger barred owl is a rival to the spotted owl, and is often cited as one of the major threats...

Doom Looms for Spotted Owl
 Doom Looms for Spotted Owl

Doom Looms for Spotted Owl

Invasion of aggressive Eastern owl threatens controversial bird

(Newser) - The outlook appears bleak for America's most controversial bird, reports the Seattle Times. Despite logging bans in huge swathes of old-growth forests initiated 14 years ago to protect the northern spotted owl, researchers have discovered its numbers have dropped by nearly half. The decline is blamed on pre-1994 habitat loss...

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