Dennis and Tweeters,
I’d like to agree with some of what you said and disagree with other parts. Barred Owls are here because of recent intervention in the great plains and old growth forests. Europeans stopped native people from burning grasslands (either by law or genocide) and planted tree gardens in the plains. This let Barred Owls spread to the west.
That leads us to today where Spotted Owl populations are crashing and if current rates continue the species won’t make it past 2050. This is largely because of logging but not exclusively. Mount Rainer has had wonderful logging protection for 125 years and yet the Spotted Owl population is plummeting - because of Barred Owl invasion.
It is NOT debatable that shooting Barred Owls in certain areas will help Spotted Owls. This method has been studied and it has shown to stabilize Spotted Owl populations. This plan is not based on a hunch.
You can also see in the report (which can be found in the preceding link) that this culling will only take place in specific areas, mainly far from population centers. No one is going to shoot the barred owl living in your neighborhood! Fish and Wildlife knows that the spotted owls aren’t coming back in your suburb! This is science-based culling, not a mob with pikes and torches!
“ Where possible around the edges of the GMAs, we did not include towns and other human-populated areas. However, some such populated areas do lie within the boundaries. These areas would generally not be part of any barred owl management area, and no firearm-based removal activity would occur within one-quarter mile of any occupied dwellings, established open campgrounds, and other locations with regular human use (Appendix 2). Again, barred owls will only be removed from the lands of willing landowners or land managers.”
Another thing, if you have not read the report (which can be found on the preceding link) you have spoken your opinion on the Barred Owl culling matter in this forum, YOU SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED. You need to READ to DISAGREE MEANINGFULLY. Otherwise you are just guessing, and this is too formal a forum to be guessing and influencing others on. Guessing is also nothing compared to what FWS staff have done to collect the supporting data.
If you think that this is just about Spotted Owls, I implore you to think again. Spotted Owls and Barred Owls have very different habits. Barred Owls eat during the day and eat more birds and amphibians than Spotted Owls. Barred Owls replacing Spotted Owls will likely cause a cascading change in the food web and wider ecosystem. I am an engineer and I can tell you that can only engineers accomplish great things by making assumptions about our world. We design a bridge for an assumed max wind speed and building for an assumed max outdoor temperature. When the world changes and forces exceed those assumptions, it’s bad! The systems we have designed will fail! With the world changing so much due to modern human influence, we should stabilize any earth system that we can. And that includes stabilizing spotted owl populations because we don’t know what changes their extinction will behold.
Please reach out to me individually with questions. I am happy to entertain individual questions from people with any level of knowledge on this issue!