Congress Moves To Stop Killing Of 500,000 Barred Owls To Save Spotted Owls

Forming an unusual alliance, environmental and animal welfare groups have pulled together a bipartisan effort in Congress, united by universal disdain for a Biden-era plan to massacre nearly 500,000 barred owls. 

Killing off barred owls in an effort to save endangered spotted owls is “wasteful, inhumane and unworkable,” Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, told Cowboy State Daily.

Those groups hailed the introduction Wednesday of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to nullify the Biden-era barred owl management strategy. The resolution’s primary sponsors include U.S. Reps. Troy Nehls, R-Texas; Josh Harder, D-California; Scott Perry, R-Pennsylvania; and Adam Gray, D-California.

Killing Owls To Save Owls

Barred owls are closely related to spotted owls, which for decades have been considered a struggling endangered species.

In September 2024, the Biden administration approved a $1.3 billion plan for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) agents to shoot about 470,000 barred owls over the next 30 years in Washington, Oregon and California. 

The justification was to give spotted owls a better chance of recovery. Barred owls are slightly larger than spotted owls and are originally from the Eastern United States, but have been expanding their range westward. 

Federal wildlife agents have already killed roughly 4,500 barred owls along the West Coast since 2009. 

Proponents of the mass culling plan argued that barred owls bully their smaller cousins out of vital, old-growth forest habitat. 

Not Many In Wyoming

Barred owls are rare in Wyoming, raptor researcher Chuck Preston previously told Cowboy State Daily.

There is evidence of a successful barred owl breeding population in Grand Teton National Park, he said.

Preston previously expressed serious doubts about the ethics and practicality of shooting mass numbers of barred owls to supposedly save spotted owls. 

It could lead to indefinite killing of barred owls because they’re so well adapted to habitats they’ve moved into, he said. 

Moreover, it seems like a stretch to classify barred owls as an “invasive species” in the forested habitats where they’ve expanded their range, Preston previously said. 

On Thursday, Preston told Cowboy State Daily that his opinion on the matter hadn’t changed. 

Impractical, Terrible Optics

Echoing Preston’s opinion, Pacelle said that trying to clear barred owls out by shooting them would be futile. 

“It’s impractical, there’s no way it can achieve its purpose,” he said. “Where they do shoot them (barred owls), more owls are just going to fly in and replace them.”

And barred owls would most likely be shot in highly visible areas such as Yosemite National Park in California, creating terrible public image optics for FWS, he added. 

There are probably better ways to spend $1.3 billion trying to preserve spotted owls, Pacelle said. 

Moreover, the plan to shoot barred owls by the thousands could reflect a wrongheaded approach of humans attempting to “micromanage” wildlife, he said. 

In areas where barred owls and spotted owls share habitat, it might be best to “let the species work it out,” he said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.