View Full Version : U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to start shooting barred owls
I saw this today. This seems ridiculous!
w on Twitter
on July 23, 2013 at 10:22 AM
GRANTS PASS — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to start dispatching hunters into Northwest forests this fall to start a last-ditch effort to save the threatened northern spotted owl from extinction.
The agency on Tuesday released a final environmental review of an experiment to see if killing more than 3,000 barred owls in four study areas in Oregon, Washington and Northern California will help spotted owls— a threatened species — recover. Final approval is due in a month.
If it works — and there are other studies indicating it will — a regular program to reduce barred owl populations would be considered.
Barred owls are a bigger, more aggressive cousin of the spotted owl. They are less picky about food and forests, and they threaten the spotted owl’s survival.
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/07/us_fish_and_wildlife_service_p.html#incart_river
--The Associated Press
I have been following the F&W folk for a long time. This one makes me just throw up my hands and declare Lordy.
They mention the plan on their fact sheet for the Northern spotted owl: http://www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/Species/Data/NorthernSpottedOwl/
For me, the most significant part of their article is the following:
Although the listing of the spotted owl as threatened and the designation of critical habitat offer some protection for the spotted owl, past trends suggest that much of the remaining unprotected habitat could disappear in 10 to 30 years.
As best I can find, this is the most recent media article, from Fox:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/23/federal-wildlife-officials-plan-to-send-hunters-to-kill-barred-owls-in/
What absolute morons we humans can be. :(
I don't know...why is this so bad? Preserving the genetic diversity of an endangered or threatened species seems like an important issue to me. I don't know that the little quips of news have enough information to make a good call for me, but it is apparently a smaller experimental area. It sounds like the more aggressive owl may be somewhat of an invasive species that has upset a natural balance and is displacing the more sensitive and threatened owls.
I am beginning to question all of the hubbub about invasive species whether plant or animal. Nature always ends up working things out as it will and humans always think they are smarter.
I don't know...why is this so bad? Preserving the genetic diversity of an endangered or threatened species seems like an important issue to me. I don't know that the little quips of news have enough information to make a good call for me, but it is apparently a smaller experimental area. It sounds like the more aggressive owl may be somewhat of an invasive species that has upset a natural balance and is displacing the more sensitive and threatened owls.
Well, that's the idea. It seems a bit extreme when they are saying that the habitat may not even exist in a few more years.
I agree pinkytoe!
Rogar......what I think is bad is that we as humans have totally upset the balance of nature. Shooting barred owls is such a back-assward way of dealing with things. We destroy certain habitats, and then we want to "fix" it without truly understanding the complexity of everything in nature.
Its like my frustration with our property being covered with invasive plants (and insects) that have all come from other continents. If we're going to allow them all into the country, then we need to accept that they're going to "do their thing" here. DH and I could spend our entire lives trying to wipe out these invasives, and they would still be in the field next door....blowing seeds onto our property.
In America (and maybe its all humans when they have enough money) we want everything we want, then start bitching about things being out of whack.
Sorry for the tangent............
Shooting barred owls is a very short-term "fix".
We're totally upsetting the balance of nature, then doing the STUPIDEST, short-sighted things to try to correct it. We can't have it both ways. We can't have a balanced planet AND do whatever the hell we want with nature all the time.
Now my blood pressure's up.
There's a difference between invasive/aggressive and invasive exotics.
WE have asked for invasive exotics because of the ways we live. Most often, they are sold in nurseries, because they look pretty..........with absolutely no concern for the impact they have on the natives.
And some native invasives have become invasive because of how we've handled our earth.
Seems to me that humans ARE aliens. We seem to be the only species that will destroy its own life support system. The only species that totally upsets the beautiful balance that nature always tries to have.
Gardenarian
7-24-13, 11:26am
I think we have to think long and hard before we start messing with ecosystems.
Did anyone else read Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World by Emma Marris?
She gets very deeply into the issues with native vs. non-native/invasive species, questioning what conservation/restoration ecology really is. It seems that biologists basically pick a point in time (usually when Europeans first arrived on the scene) and try to bring the ecosystem back to that state, with the assumption that this is somehow "natural" - ignoring, for example, that in the U.S. indigenous humans lived here for some 20,000 years, having profound effects on the environment, and excluding people from what is considered part of nature.
It was a really thought-provoking book, with a lot of concrete examples.
That looks like an interesting book, Gardenarian.
Having so many "invasives" on our property has caused me to rethink things too. As far as all these exotic/invasive things.......the horse has left the barn, so to speak. As I've said, DH and I could spend the rest of our lives trying to get rid of the japanese bush honeysuckle (which totally covers most of our property.......from a couple inches high to 15+ feet high), greenbriar, thistle, wild parsnip, poison hemlock, wild grape, poison ivy, wild buckwheat, and MANY, MANY more. But we just can't do it. These "weeds" are spread over everywhere in the state, and probably the nation. I suppose we could eventually get rid of them, if the nation as a whole chose to address it at once and very intensely........not allowing certain plants to be imported, stricter rules about the bugs and birds that come over in boats, etc., etc. But that will NEVER happen, with the globalization that has occurred.
So...........I'm trying to think in terms of it being evolution. Try to make nature as it was 100+ years ago just is never going to happen. So.....DH and I are keeping some of these "invasives" out of small areas by the house/garden/barn, and that's all we can do. And we mow trails through it all, so we can ride our cart through it and try to appreciate it, as it is.
The birds/butterflies/insects all love the various flowers/berries/seeds that these "invasives" give them. Seems like that must count for something. But then someone told me that the berries produced by the Japanese honeysuckles aren't very high in protein...........so what does that mean in terms of the birds' health??? Seems like one question just leads to 50 more.
So......I don't know what's ahead for this planet. Do I miss the older one? Absolutely! But I think we have to come to terms with evolution. Its happening right in front of us. I think evolution doesn't necessarily mean that the things we loved most will survive. I think there are definitely things that man could do to slow it down.........but he/she doesn't really want to do it. At least not the masses.
I'm in the process of trying to accept the changes and the losses. It makes me very, very sad, in a very haunting way.........to lose such incredible balance and beauty, that some of us are old enough to have seen in the past. But........life (and nature) moves on. We can continue to curse it every second of every day, or try to be more flexible about the changes that are happening. (Its really hard, though, knowing what to fight versus what to accept).
I look at it this way.........no matter what ever happens to mankind on this planet.......nature will survive and hopefully someday, at some point, recover and be as beautiful and balanced as it was long ago.
There are actually probably three classes. Invasive exotics, non-native invasives, and native invasives. When it comes down to messing with ecology, we have a pretty poor track record, but taking the owls for example, we have already messed with their ecology. It is mostly an issue of trying to set straight what is left. And are doing so with what the current state of wildlife management has to restore it.
My education and area of some expertise is in fisheries biology. The introduction of non-native species for the benefit of sportsmen pretty much eliminated the native trout sub species in my state. There is a costly effort of restore some of the native gene stock, which often includes poisoning portions of stream and rivers to eliminate more competitive species or species that would interbreed. The gene pools that are being protected and restored evolved for thousands of years to be specifically suited for their particular geographic location as a sustainable population. Once they are gone and replaced there is always the possibility of some sort of domino effect with the stream or lake environment and no guarantee of a sustainable population.
But even worse is to totally loose the gene pool. It's pretty much what has happened to the Atlantic Salmon that used to run wild in many of the rivers in the northeast. Atlantic Salmon are far from extinct, but millions of dollars have been spent to reestablish the wild runs, and the hatchery salmon with diluted genetics are unable to adapt. Similar examples exist on the west coast with the pacific salmon species.
If I thought it was purely a case of evolution that barred owls are taking over then I'd think this was stupid. Millions of species became extinct long before humans came on the scene. A whole lot of those were because another species came along that was better adapted to the environment. However, its not a stretch at all, IMO, to think human activity caused threats to the northern spotted owls so, to keep a clear conscience, we have to do something No matter how dumb it sounds.
I am beginning to question all of the hubbub about invasive species whether plant or animal. Nature always ends up working things out as it will and humans always think they are smarter.
Sort of depends on how you define environmental quality and the legacy we leave for future generations. Letting thing run amok it an option. Take a look at what zebra mussels are doing to the Great Lakes and other places.
Thankfully we at least have the endangered species act and to protect a few things.
Yes, maybe we should do something.............like have less development or logging, which destroys the habitat that would allow all the owls space. But no, there's nothing we humans want to give up. Greed and excess trump nature every time.
I don't know what the answer is. I know there are some very good-hearted, well-intentioned people who are trying to save all the species. But the millions in the other camp...............
Unless we can make this a group/nation effort...........I don't know what can work.
And what happens if they kill off alot of barred owls and the smaller owls come back. What then? What's to keep other barred owls from returning..........if nothing else outside that small area has changed......and possibly even gotten worse?
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