OPINION: Let’s focus on forest health, not killing barred owls

This editorial was published in The Columbian of Vancouver, Wash.

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Rather than killing one owl species to preserve another, the federal government should focus on restoring forest health and developing lush habitats.

In other words, officials should abandon a project to kill some 450,000 barred owls in West Coast forests out of a desire to protect the northern spotted owl. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. Forest Service approved a plan to have trained shooters target barred owls for 30 years over more than 20,000 square miles of forest in Washington, Oregon and California.

The issue has returned to prominence with a bipartisan group of 19 lawmakers asking the current administration to rethink the plan. They claim it would be overly expensive and they question whether it would help spotted owls.

Therein lie the broader questions about public expenditures and about humans’ ability to manage the environment. “This is an inappropriate and inefficient use of U.S. taxpayer dollars,” the lawmakers wrote. “This latest plan is an example of our federal government attempting to supersede nature and control environmental outcomes at great cost.”

The northern spotted owl long has been a lightning rod for environmental debates in this part of the country. In the 1980s and 1990s, logging restrictions were imposed to preserve the owl’s habitat in old-growth forests, generating strident debates and altering the economies of logging communities.

Since then, the invasive barred owl has added to the spotted owl’s troubles. Barred owls are native to eastern North America and started appearing in the Northwest in the 1970s, displacing their smaller rivals. The Associated Press reports: “Barred owls arrived in the Pacific Northwest via the Great Plains, where trees planted by settlers gave them a foothold, or via Canada’s boreal forests, which have become warmer and more hospitable as the climate changes, researchers said.”

According to federal officials, an estimated 100,000 barred owls now live within a range that contains approximately 7,100 spotted owls.

That led to a convoluted plan to kill large numbers of barred owls. As Kessina Lee, supervisor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife office in Oregon, told Oregon Public Broadcasting last year: “Rather than choosing to conserve one bird over the other, this is about conserving two species. Spotted owls are fighting for their existence right now. Whereas, even if the service was able to remove that number of barred owls over the next 30 years, that would represent less than 1 percent of the global population of barred owls.”

There is evidence that the plan will benefit the spotted owl. A 17-year study released in 2021 by Oregon State University concluded that “removal of invasive barred owls arrested the population decline of the northern spotted owl.”

But that does not necessarily mean that it is wise to kill barred owls for acting like owls. Most troublesome is that there is no firm cost estimate. Based on pilot programs that have targeted small numbers of barred owls, lawmakers claim that full implementation would cost $1.3 billion.

It also would trigger a circular cycle with no obvious destination. As Wayne Pacelle, president of the Center for a Humane Economy points out, “If you don’t do it dutifully and religiously every single year for 30 years, it has no chance of succeeding.”

Which brings us to the larger issue. Rather than focusing on a proposal that might or might not work, policymakers should work on restoring healthy forests and building lush habitat for whichever species reside there.

TNS