Should the federal government allow people to shoot barred owls to protect the endangered northern spotted owl?
That’s a question wildlife officials are asking after the Obama administration announced a plan Tuesday to help the passive, 1-pound bird that sparked an epic battle over logging in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1990s.
The controversial plan includes the slaughter of the spotted owl’s chief rival: the larger, more aggressive barred owl.
Although the government set aside millions of acres of forest to protect the spotted owl, the bird’s population has dropped 40 percent in 25 years.
The latest plan, which replaces a 2008 Bush administration plan that was tossed out in federal court, would designate habitat considered critical for the bird’s survival, while allowing logging to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and create jobs.
In addition to shooting hundreds of barred owls, the new plan calls for non-lethal removal of the barred owls.
The shooting of barred owls would not be permitted in Olympic National Park.
“We can’t ignore the mounting evidence that competition from barred owls is a major factor in the spotted owl’s decline, and we have a clear obligation to do all we can to prevent the spotted owl’s extinction and help it rebound,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe.
Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center spokesman Matthew Randazzo said the Sequim center directed by Jaye Moore is officially opposed to the sanctioned shooting of barred owls.
“We’re basically condemning hundreds, if not thousands, of barred owls to death,” he said.
Randazzo said barred owls and spotted owls are closely related and have been known to cross-breed.
“If you care about spotted owls, what justifies the abuse of barred owls?” he said.
“The only way to keep the spotted owl protected from barred owls is to keep hunting them forever,” Randazzo added.
Scott Gremel, an Olympic National Park wildlife biologist, conducts annual spotted owl surveys at 54 known owl territories scattered throughout the park.
Those surveys are combined with similar counts taken in Olympic National Forest to provide regional data for the Northwest Forest Plan.
Although he did not have specific spotted owl counts on hand, Gremel said its population in Olympic National Park has fallen by about 4 percent per year since the early 1990s.
Gremel said barred owls have been an “ongoing problem” for spotted owls since they arrived on the Peninsula from the East Coast in the mid-1980s.
“We have a sense that there’s a lot of them out there,” Gremel said.
“We know they weren’t even here in 1985 or so. Now they’re pretty much everywhere.”
Gremel declined to give his personal opinion about the federal plan to shoot barred owls.
“That’s a Fish and Wild Service program,” he said, adding that the plan is experimental and emphasizing that no shooting would be allowed in the park.
According to a draft environmental statement on the plan, barred owls would have to be identified by visual and auditory cues before they could be shot with a shotgun.
The unobstructed shots would be on stationary owls from a distance of 66 to 98 feet.
If any spotted owls were in the vicinity, the barred owl shootings would be required to be postponed.
Anyone participating in the shooting would need specific training and appropriate licenses.
Fish and Wildlife officials would coordinate the disposal of the carcass, according to the draft environmental impact statement.
Chris Tollefson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesman, said the spotted owl is “one of those species that is very much a species of concern nationwide and worldwide.”
Another plan also proposes revising critical habitat for the northern spotted owl, which includes parts of Clallam and Jefferson counties.
It would affect millions of acres of national, state and private forestland in Washington, Oregon and Northern California.
Norm Schaaf, vice president and timberland manager for Port Angeles-based Merrill & Ring, said most of the present critical habitat for the northern spotted owl on the Peninsula is on existing federal land — the national park and Olympic National Forest.
Schaaf noted that the plan to control barred owl population is experimental.
“I think there’s some risk, certainly, in that,” Schaaf said.
“I think eradicating one species in favor of another seems problematic at best and may be predetermined to failure at worst.”
Schaaf and others said it may be difficult to control the barred owl population because of its competitive advantages over the spotted owl.
“The barred owl’s presence has been a significant contributor, if not the major contributor, to displacement of the northern spotted owl,” Schaaf said.
“I’ve observed the barred owl in a lot of areas, including deep in the national park.”
The latest plan for spotted owls was accompanied by a presidential memorandum directing Interior to take a number of steps before the plan is finalized, including providing clear direction for how logging can be conducted within areas designated as critical habitat and conducting an economic analysis at the same time critical-habitat areas are proposed.
Officials acknowledge that the plan to kill barred owls creates an ethical dilemma, but they say an experiment on private land in Northern California has shown promising results. Spotted owls have returned to historic territories after barred owls were removed.
But Randazzo said the barred owl “always will have a natural advantage in habitats where they coexist” with spotted owls.
Asked if the northern spotted owl is doomed, Randazzo said: “No one knows what it means for the long run.”
“I don’t think anything humans have done have been great for spotted owls,” he said.
“Right now, the least damaging thing we could do is not cause more damage to local owls by hunting them.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
