Let this be a lesson

Hunting
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Let this be a lesson to us all. If you/we/us are successful, the feds will seek to destroy you/we/us. :thinking:

Feds Enlist Hunters to Kill Half a Million Invasive Owls in the Pacific Northwest (msn.com)


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Feds Enlist Hunters to Kill Half a Million Invasive Owls in the Pacific Northwest

Story by Matthew Every • 3h

image
Barred owls are native to eastern North America.
© USFWS

As part of a new management plan for barred owls in the Pacific Northwest, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is calling for a 500,000 bird cull—and they need hunters to help. The cull will take place over the next 30 years with the end goal of eliminating half a million barred owls from places like northern California, Oregon, and Washington state.

Barred owls have lived in the Pacific Northwest since the 1950s. Over the past 70 years, they have slowly displaced the native northern spotted owl, causing spotted owls to be listed under the Endangered Species Act. In just the past 20 years, northern spotted owl populations have declined between 35 to 80 percent.

"Everywhere the spotted owl can live and thrive, barred owls can thrive and do even better,” USFWS wildlife biologist Katherine Fitzgerald recently told the Seattle Times. Barred owls are bigger and more aggressive than northern spotted owls. They’re also better at finding food, and they have a more varied diet that includes insects, reptiles, and small mammals. And barred owls can displace spotted owls by attacking them when they get too close to their nests, according to the USFWS.

Currently, there are over 100,000 barred owls living in the Pacific Northwest. The USFWS plans to start culling them in 2025 with an initial push of 20,000 birds for the year. For the next decade, they plan to cull over 13,000 owls per year. During the following decade, that number will increase to over 16,000 birds a year. In the decade after that, managers want to eliminate over 17,000 birds per year. If successful, the plan will eliminate 30 percent of the barred owl population, which should be enough to give spotted owls a fighting chance.

Landowners and land managers will be able to apply for permits to shoot barred owls. The USFWS says that a shotgun would be the best tool for the job. Managers are also considering capturing and euthanizing barred owls in more developed areas with higher concentrations of people.

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They are asking for help but you’ll need to pay for a permit to help them? :rofl:

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Good opportunity for training youth hunters to hunt and shoot with pallet guns/22 caliber rifles! :thinking:

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I wonder if they taste like chicken.

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@Todd30, @Robert1246 needs your assistance. :grinning:

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“Let this be a lesson to us all. If you/we/us are successful, the feds will seek to destroy you/we/us.”

This is not the lesson. The lesson is a conservation biology lesson. And not some nefarious signal to “You/we/us.” Poll after poll demonstrates that most Americans favor conservation policies and support conserving and protecting endangers species. Which is what this policy is about.

The Barred Owl, Strix varia is only successful in the Pacific Northwest because of large scale changes in land use. Tree planting in the Great Plains, fire suppression in the north allowed the Barred Owl to expand into regions it never used to occupy in great numbers. The Barred Owl’s success in the West now puts the endangered Spotted Owl Strix occidentalis in some considerable peril. Barred Owls are larger and more aggressive than their spotted cousins, and tend to outcompete with them for nest cavities which are a limited resource for cavity nesting owls. There is also some hybridization occurring further imperiling the Spotted Owl.

There is no greater message in this action than a biological conservationist message, which most Americans support. Though I can hear the PETA monsters caterwauling about this policy from here.

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Only if they Polled 335 million people. The average Poll is 1,000 people.

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A pallet gun must be a bit much for a young hunter to handle. A pallet must many times bigger than a .22 lr cartridge. :wink:

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I wouldn’t kill a single one, they (USFWS and activists) have been using that damned Spotted Owl since the 70s… If it fails, :roll_eyes: then it fails.

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True, either way the food cycle continues, i.e…, they eat rodents, snakes, lizards, bugs, etc.,.

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That is certainly an argument one could make. It has been made, and most of the American people seem to have rejected in favor of conserving endangered species.

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That doesn’t seem to be the case from reputable polling orgs. People also vote for conservation at the polls, and in citizen initiatives.

Though you are correct that 100-1500 is a reasonable poll size. There are larger polls and smaller polls, but there are also, a whole lotta polls.

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Yup, a more successful species pushing another one out, been happening for millions of years. Besides when have you seen owls out in daytime, not often. :thinking:

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@Max20 It works both ways either there’s an endangered species laws are imposed to protect, or there’s way too many of a species that laws are aloud to control the over population of that species.

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That just do not add up to 335 million people.
So actually it is a small percentage of people that determine what stays and what goes.

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If they are done well, they don’t really have to add up to 335 million people.

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So the masses don’t need to worry, that 1,000-ish people can make the big decisions.
Our current administration isn’t polling to see if their policies are helping they people the govern.

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@Robert1246 tastes like small game chicken. :yum: :laughing:

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Barred Owls are really easy to call in. And you don’t even have to be that great at their call. They are territorial and will come and check out a caller. They will do this even during the day, especially close to dawn and dusk. They can be even more aggressive January and February when they are finding mates and territories.

So hunters won’t have much trouble finding them.

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They are predators, pretend to be a wounded rabbit. :grinning:

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