At one point biologists rounded up all the free ranging condors, stuck them
in cages, and breed them for several years, finally releasing some back to
the wild. Obviously this sort of intervention is very costly so preserving
ES birds has a track record of spending money. I would think shooting barred
owls for 5 years would be considerably cheaper than captive breeding.
Apparently shooting Cormorants to protect salmon is a viable option, so
shooting barred to protect spottys seems equally viable at least in the eyes
of endangered wildlife managers.

I have heard references to west nile virus in Michigan and Wisconsin having
a large impact on owls, but I have not found any primary documentation of
this. If this rumor has substance, it might behoove ES biologists to
consider some captive breeding pairs of spotty's while there are still a few
pairs left. I understand that last year in the Andrews forest there was a
complete crash of spotty breeding due to weather conditions killing the
owlets. Not sure how many more breeding failures that population can
withstand before failing all together.


Is it better to have genes in a zoo, or death with dignity?

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer
The Environmental Science School
HYPERLINK
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