feds begin barred owl kills to help spotted owl 122113

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Feds begin barred owl kills to help spotted owl

Herald and News 12/21/13

GRANTS PASS (AP) — An experiment to see if killing invasive barred owls will help the threatened northern spotted owl reverse its decline toward extinction is underway in the forests of Northern California.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday that specially trained biologists have shot 26 barred owls in a study area on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation northeast of Arcata, Calif.

They plan to remove as many as 118 barred owls from the area, keeping the 55 known barred owl nesting sites open over the next five years to see if spotted owls increase, said Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Robin Bown. Contractors go to an area that barred owls are known to be in, play a digital caller to attract them, and shoot the birds with a shotgun.

The service is spending $3.5 million over six years to remove 3,600 barred owls from sites in Oregon, Washington and California.

Barred owls migrated from the East in the 1950s and have become the single biggest threat to spotted owl survival.

Major cutbacks in logging in old growth forest that spotted owls prefer as habitat have not turned around their population decline, and scientists want to see if removing competition from the more aggressive barred owl will make a difference.

Barred owl removal at research sites in Oregon and Washington state is set to begin next fall.

By then, the group Friends of Animals hopes to persuade a federal judge to issue a court order stopping the experiment. A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif., argues the permits for killing barred owls issued under the Migratory Bird Act are invalid. The research does not benefit the barred owl, said Friends of Animals attorney Michael Harris.

It is not unusual to kill one species to help a threatened or endangered one. Cormorants and sea lions are regularly killed to help salmon.

AP file photo

A northern spotted owl sits on a tree in t he Deschutes National Forest near Camp Sherman, Ore.

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