Two hoots and a holler

Apollo, a 36-year-old barred owl, arrived at the Ohio Bird Sanctuary in 1988 as an orphaned owlet. After the sociable young raptor imprinted on his caretaker and began identifying with humans, it became impos­sible to release him back into the wild. According to sanctuary executive director Julie Schwartz, Apollo is a gentle, friendly bird: Wild barred owls frequently come to “talk” with him and his fellow owls at the sanctuary. After enjoying a productive life as an educational ambassador for his species, the now-retired owl has tripled what his life expectancy would have been in the wild.

Owls like Apollo may be cute, and such birds’ lovable nature likely has contributed to the controversy over a federal plan to shoot thousands of barred owls in the Pacific Northwest.

Native to the Eastern United States, barred owls began spreading westward over the past century and have overtaken the forests of the Pacific Northwest, where they are encroaching on the territory of another owl species—the northern spotted owl. The threatened spotted owl has lost habitat due to deforestation and has long been a point of dispute between the logging industry and wildlife environmentalists, who want to ­preserve the old-growth forests the bird inhabits.

Only an estimated 15,000 or fewer northern spotted owls still exist. To prevent their extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) wants to kill up to 450,000 barred owls in the Pacific Northwest over the next 30 years. Beginning next spring, pending final approval, officials plan to use recorded owl calls broadcast through megaphones to lure the barred owls into a range where experts can shoot them. That’s ruffling the feathers of some wildlife advocates.

“It’s an excessive response to a real challenge,” said Wayne Pacelle, founder of Animal Wellness Action. “I think the USFWS agency has a single-­species mania.”

At nearly 20 inches in height, with a wingspan double that, barred owls are fierce hunters who compete for food with the less aggressive spotted owls. A 2021 review found that northern spotted owl populations have declined 2 to 9 percent annually in 11 surveyed geographic areas in recent years. Federal officials say the presence of barred owls was the main factor for the decline.

Former efforts to save the spotted owl focused on preserving forests. That approach slowed the decline but sparked conflict with the logging industry. From 2009 to 2019 officials shot 2,485 barred owls in five study areas to see if spotted owl numbers would increase. They didn’t, although the experiment did limit their decline.

The government has evaluated several nonlethal ways to reduce the barred owl population, such as relocation, permanent captivity, and reproduction interference. But none of these methods proved feasible at a large scale, the wildlife agency said.

Many environmental groups oppose killing one bird to save another, but Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, supports the plan. He likens the culling to other wildlife conservation programs in which officials remove ­invasive species to benefit native species.

“It is not a position I take lightly,” he told me, noting that failure to do something about barred owls will mean extinction of spotted owls. “That’s a consequence I can’t accept.”

The USFWS says the plan will not eliminate barred owls but will remove them from less than half of the northern spotted owl’s range.

Associated Press/Photo by Ted S. Warren

William Lynn, a specialist in animal ethics from the George Perkins Marsh Institute of Clark University, supported the former experiments with culling barred owls because he thought they might help spotted owls establish a safe haven for survival. But that didn’t happen, he said. He told me the current plan amounts to nothing more than a “massacre” that will do nothing to save the spotted owl. Other than large-scale habitat changes, he said, there’s little we can do now other than place the remaining spotted owls in a captive breeding program and release them later.

It’s a difficult dilemma, even from a Christian point of view, noted Karina Altman, zoo content manager with the creation science organization Answers in Genesis. Although it’s hard to think about killing so many birds, she leans toward culling: Doing nothing could mean the loss of an entire species. We have a responsibility to protect habitats and animals, she says, because God created them and told us to care for them.

Five years ago, Daniel Lipinski, an owl monitor and bander’s apprentice in Washington state, saved a barred owl that became trapped in his chicken run. The owl—which Lipinski’s son affectionately named Harpier—still visits Lipinski’s yard along with her mate and brings her young around in early summer. Lipinski has seen her hunt everything from rodents to songbirds, crows, snakes, worms, and squirrels. He has dissected her droppings and found snail shells, amphibian bones, and beetle carapaces.

Despite Lipinski’s affection for Harpier and her family, he supports the culling plan. “Barred owls aren’t only affecting spotted owls but are causing ecosystem upsets as they continue to proliferate and expand their range,” he said in an email. He noted that with the increase in barred owls, western screech owls have disappeared from Kitsap County, where he lives.

Having a large, charismatic bird as the face of the debate makes a difference, he said. “If this conversation were about an insect, a plant, or a rodent, I don’t think there would be an uproar.”