US officials plan to cull 450,000 barred owls to boost another species
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 cousins.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service strategy released Wednesday is meant to prop up declining spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington state and California. The Associated Press obtained details in advance.
Documents released by the agency show up to about 450,000 barred owls would be shot over three decades after the birds from the eastern US encroached into the West Coast territory of two owls: northern spotted owls and California spotted owls. The smaller spotted owls have been unable to compete with the invaders, which have large broods and need less room to survive than spotted owls.
Past efforts to save spotted owls focused on protecting the forests where they live, sparking bitter fights over logging but also helping slow the birds’ decline. The proliferation of barred owls in recent years is undermining that earlier work, officials said.
“Without actively managing barred owls, northern spotted owls will likely go extinct in all or the majority of their range, despite decades of collaborative conservation efforts,” said Kessina Lee, the Oregon state supervisor for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
The notion of killing one bird species to save another has divided wildlife advocates and conservationists. It’s reminiscent of past government efforts to save West Coast salmon by killing sea lions and cormorants that prey on the fish, and to preserve warblers by killing cowbirds that lay eggs in warbler nests.
Some advocates grudgingly accepted the barred owl removal strategy; others said it’s reckless diversion from needed forest preservation.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service is turning from protector of wildlife to persecutor of wildlife,” said Wayne Pacelle, founder of the advocacy group Animal Wellness Action. He predicted the program would fail because the agency won’t be able to keep more barred owls from migrating into areas where others have been killed.
The shootings would likely begin next spring, officials said. Barred owls would be lured using megaphones to broadcast recorded owl calls, then shot with shotguns. Carcasses would be buried on site.
The birds already are being killed by researchers in some spotted owl habitats, with about 4,500 removed since 2009, said Robin Bown, barred owl strategy leader for the Fish and Wildlife Service. Those targeted included barred owls in California’s Sierra Nevada region, where the animals have only recently arrived and officials want to stop populations from taking hold.
In other areas where barred owls are more established, officials aim to reduce their numbers but acknowledge shooting owls is unlikely to eliminate them.
Supporters include the American Bird Conservancy and other conservation groups.
Barred owls don’t belong in the West, said American Bird Conservancy Vice President Steve Holmer. Killing them is unfortunate, he added, but reducing their numbers could allow them to live alongside spotted owls over the long term.
“As the old forests are allowed to regrow, hopefully coexistence is possible and maybe we don’t need to do as much” shooting, Holmer said.
The killings would reduce nationwide barred owl numbers by less than 1%, officials said. That compares with potential extinction for spotted owls should the problem go unaddressed.
Public hunting of barred owls wouldn’t be allowed. The wildlife service would designate government agencies, landowners, American Indian tribes or companies to carry out the killings. Shooters would have to provide documentation of training or experience in owl identification and firearm skills.
The publishing in the coming days of a final environmental study on the proposal will open a 30-day comment period before a final decision is made.
The barred owl plan follows decades of conflict between conservationists and timber companies, which cut down vast areas of older forests where spotted owls reside.
Early efforts to save the birds culminated in logging bans in the 1990s that roiled the timber industry and its political supporters in Congress.
Yet spotted owl populations continued declining after barred owls started showing up on the West Coast several decades ago. Across study sites in the region, at least half of spotted owls have been lost, with losses topping 75% in some areas, said Katherine Fitzgerald, who leads the wildlife service’s northern spotted owl recovery program.
Opponents say the mass killing of barred owls would cause severe disruption to forest ecosystems and could lead to other species — including spotted owls — being mistakenly shot. They’ve also challenged the notion that barred owls don’t belong on the West Coast, characterizing their expanding range as a natural ecological phenomenon.
Researchers say barred owls moved westward by one of two routes: across the Great Plains, where trees planted by settlers gave them a foothold in new areas; or via Canada’s boreal forests, which have become more hospitable as temperatures rise because of climate change.
Northern spotted owls are federally protected as a threatened species. Federal officials determined in 2020 that their continued decline merited an upgrade to the more critical designation of “endangered.” But the Fish and Wildlife Service refused to do so at the time, saying other species took priority.
California spotted owls were proposed for federal protections last year. A decision is pending.
Under former President Donald Trump, government officials stripped habitat protections for spotted owls at the behest of the timber industry. Those were reinstated under President Joe Biden after the Interior Department said political appointees under Trump relied on faulty science to justify their weakening of protections.
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Post poll TN alliances divided in supporting TVK
Chennai (PTI): In a changed political atmosphere in Tamil Nadu with no single political party having a simple majority to form the government post the Assembly election, opinion is divided among the allies led by the Dravidian majors in extending external support to Vijay-led TVK in government formation.
Both the DMK and AIADMK are at unease as the Congress and also a section in the AIADMK express willingness to extend external support to Vijay-led Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagtam in forming the government.
Post poll, the TVK's political prospects appear to impact alliances led by both the Dravidian majors in a different manner, triggering a speculation of a split.
Leema Rose Martin, who won from Lalgudi on an AIADMK ticket, has stated that talks were underway on extending support to the TVK. Her son-in-law Aadhav Arjuna, who won from Villivakkam is TVK's general secretary.
On May 5, former AIADMK minister O S Manian, emerging from his meeting with party general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, stated that AIADMK would not support TVK in forming the government.
The AIADMK, which finished third in the elections with 47 seats has cancelled its meeting of MLAs designate on Wednesday amidst a difference in extending external support to the TVK, which won 108 seats, including two seats by its founder Vijay.
As Vijay is gearing up for his swearing-in on May 7, the police have tightened security at his residence here. The party has lodged its MLA-elect at a resort in Mamallapuram and has simultaneously engaged in talks with the Congress and AIADMK, a source said.
The DMK that won 59 seats on its own, has convened a meeting of its newly elected legislators on May 7 evening and the party is likely to elect the youth wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin, who won from Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni as its legislature party leader.
Congress general secretary K C Venugopal admitted that TVK chief Vijay requested the Congress for support to form the government.
"The INC is clear that the mandate in Tamil Nadu is for a secular government, committed to protecting the Constitution in letter and spirit. The INC is determined not to allow the BJP and its proxies to run the government of Tamil Nadu in any manner. Thiru Vijay has also spoken about drawing inspiration from Perunthalaivar Kamaraj," he said.
Accordingly, the Congress leadership has directed the TNCC to take a final decision on Vijay’s request, keeping in view the sentiments of the state as reflected in the electoral verdict, Venugopal said in a statement.
DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai slammed the Congress decision and said the move to ally with TVK, pledging the support of its five MLAs to the party, was tantamount to "backstabbing the DMK and the people of Tamil Nadu."
"They have betrayed the mandate given by the people. Even before the ink on the returning officer’s signature on the victory certificate has dried, they have chosen to go ahead with this alliance," he told PTI.
The most important question was who took this "foolhardy decision, and how is it going to backfire on the Congress?" he asked.
"I don’t think they had any serious deliberation on this. The larger issue is their opposition to the BJP, which is their ideological enemy. We have supported the Congress throughout. It was our leader M K Stalin, who named Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate when the BJP and RSS were criticising him. And now, within a day, they say they are supporting TVK. This is not the mandate of the people of Tamil Nadu,” Saravanan said.
The Congress' exit from its long-standing alliance with the DMK will be a significant moment in the political scenario of the state, commentator and political analyst Sumanth Raman said.
The Congress may be betting on the TVK as a long-term partner option, but that comes with risks, as the TVK is as yet an unknown quantity, he said.
"For the DMK, if the TVK+Congress becomes the choice of the minorities as it well could, it is an existential threat. It was the minority vote that gave the DMK alliance a 12%-15% cushion in the polls. If that goes, their chances of winning drops dramatically," Raman said on 'X.'
The Congress won 5 seats. However, DMK's other allies, the IUML, VCK, CPI and CPI (M) and DMDK have categorically stated that they would not support TVK.
As of now, the TVK requires the support of 11 MLAs to attain a simple majority of 118 to form the government.
The PMK, which won 4 seats and AMMK one - both allies of AIADMK - have not announced their decision yet.
"AIADMK’s real post-result drama may not be outside the party, but inside it. Whispers from the west and north suggest that a Coimbatore hand and a Villupuram voice may soon ask the question everyone is avoiding: Is it time to save the party from the leadership, before the cadre are forced to do it themselves? In politics, coups don’t begin with slogans. They begin with silence, phone calls and “review meetings,” Aspire Swaminathan, who is credited with founding the AIADMK IT wing in 2014, said on 'X.'
He has resigned from the AIADMK in 2021 and now acts an as independent political analyst.
