“It’s not just one owl versus one owl,” said David Wiens, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who led a barred owl removal study that ended in 2020. “Because of their predatory behavior, they are basically eating anything in the forest and this includes amphibians, small mammals, other bird species.”
Government officials say that 15 years of killing barred owls experimentally, including on Northern California’s Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, shows that the controversial strategy could halt the decline of spotted owls. Yet researchers warn that few spotted owls remain in some areas, and it could take years to turn the tide on the barred owls’ aggressive expansion of their range.
The wildlife service would designate government agencies, landowners, tribes or companies to carry out the killings. Shooters would have to provide documentation of training or experience in owl identification and firearm skills.
Public hunting of barred owls wouldn’t be allowed.
“We’re talking about managing in less than 50% of that northern spotted owl range to try and carve out space for those spotted owls,” Fish and Wildlife Service Oregon state supervisor Kessina Lee said. “We’re still going to have barred owls in the West. This is really just about trying to prevent the extinction of spotted owls.”
Some wildlife advocates have backed the barred owl killings. Others say it’s a reckless diversion from needed forest preservation and won’t stop barred owls from migrating into the region.
Their spread has undermined decades of spotted owl restoration efforts that previously focused on protecting forests where they live. That included logging restrictions under former President Bill Clinton that ignited bitter political fights but also temporarily helped slow the spotted owl’s decline.
Northern spotted owls are federally protected as a threatened species. California spotted owls were proposed for federal protection last year. A decision is pending.
Barred owls are highly territorial, which makes killing them relatively straightforward, according to researchers. Shooters use megaphones to broadcast recorded owl calls at night and lure the birds close to roads, where they are killed with shotguns.
“The birds will come right in. They’re very focused on this recording,” Wiens said. “If we go into a site and detect a barred owl there, we have over a 95 % chance of removing that barred owl.”
Other potential approaches — including capturing and euthanizing barred owls, collecting their eggs to prevent reproduction, or hazing them out of areas with spotted owls — were considered by the wildlife service but rejected as too costly or impractical.
About 4,500 barred owls have been killed on the West Coast since 2009 by researchers, according to officials.
That includes more than 800 birds from the Hoopa reservation, tribal wildlife biologist Mark Higley said.
Higley conducts the barred owl removals across 140 square miles on the reservation primarily by himself, working two or three nights a week from early spring until late fall.
“The problem has been we get like 60 to 100 new barred owls each year,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong; barred owls are magnificent species. I just would really like to go see them where they’re native and not invasive.”
