A U.S. government plan to kill nearly half a million Barred Owls in the Pacific Northwest has sparked a major fight. The plan, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), would allow the killing of 450,000 owls over 30 years. Biologists say this is a last-ditch effort, based on data, to stop the native Northern Spotted Owl from going extinct.

This proposal, however, has been met with public anger, lawsuits, and harsh criticism. One politician, Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), called it the “dumbest thing ever.” The plan has also created strange allies. It has set conservation groups against animal welfare groups and caused a split in the Republican party. At the heart of it all is a massive problem created by humans, where every possible solution leads to serious, permanent harm.

Why the Northern Spotted Owl is Disappearing

The Northern Spotted Owl (NSO), listed as “threatened” since 1990, is more than just a bird; it’s a powerful symbol. Putting it on the protected list started the “Timber Wars” of the 1990s, which led to the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan that heavily cut back on logging. But even after 30 years of protection, NSO numbers are dropping fast. In Washington state, for example, the population has fallen by 75-80% since 1995.

The USFWS says there are two main, connected reasons for this. The first is the long-term loss of their forest homes due to logging. This “original sin” destroyed the complex, old-growth forests the owls need to survive, making them weak. The second, and more urgent, problem is a massive invasion by the Barred Owl (BO).

The Barred Owl, which is from Eastern North America, is not a “natural” invader. It was able to move west during the 20th century because of changes humans made to the landscape. Planting trees across the Great Plains and stopping natural wildfires created a “human bridge” for the owls. This removed the natural barrier that had kept the two species apart for thousands of years.

The Barred Owl is a stronger competitor. It is larger, more aggressive, and a “generalist” with a “broad diet”—it eats almost anything, including mammals, birds, and insects. This lets it do well even in areas changed by humans. The shyer Northern Spotted Owl is a “specialist” that needs specific prey found only in old-growth forests, like flying squirrels. The Barred Owl also has more babies and has been seen chasing NSOs out of their nests, stealing their food, and even killing them.

The 17-Year Study and Its Difficult Truth

The government’s plan isn’t just a guess. It’s based on a 17-year-long scientific study done at several locations. This major study was required by the 2011 NSO Recovery Plan, and it proved that killing the invaders works.

The results were crystal clear. In “control” areas, where Barred Owls were left alone, the Northern Spotted Owl population continued to crash, dropping by an average of 12.1% every year. But in “treatment” areas, where Barred Owls were shot and removed, the NSO’s decline stopped. Their populations became stable, dropping by only 0.2% per year. The scientists concluded that removing Barred Owls had a “strong, positive effect on survival of spotted owls.”

This success forced the government’s hand. Under the Endangered Species Act, the USFWS has a legal duty to “do all it can” to save the NSO. The study proved that doing nothing is the same as actively choosing to let the NSO go extinct.

At the same time, this data also gives fuel to those who oppose the plan. They argue it’s a “futility” argument—meaning it’s useless in the long run. The study showed the NSO population stabilized but didn’t guarantee it would recover. An earlier, smaller test found that as soon as the killing stopped, the NSO population started to decline again. This supports the argument that the “solution” isn’t a one-time fix. Instead, it’s a permanent, expensive, and morally questionable “treadmill” that must be kept up “forever,” because new Barred Owls will simply move in from surrounding areas.

How the Plan Would Work—And Why It Might Fail

The 2024 Barred Owl Management Strategy (BOMS) is the final product of a formal, multi-year process that included public feedback. The plan gives permission to kill 450,000 to 500,000 Barred Owls over 30 years, which works out to about 16,000 owls per year.

Many people misunderstand the plan. It is “Absolutely NO public hunting.” All killing will be done by trained, certified “removal specialists.” These specialists must get a Special Purpose Permit under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, a law that normally protects the Barred Owl. The main method will be shooting, using rules “designed to ensure a quick, humane kill.”

But the plan has a huge, possibly fatal, weakness: it’s “voluntary.” The USFWS states that the plan “relies on willing land managers and landowners.” This real-world limitation goes against the plan’s own science. The science (and the “futility” argument) suggests that to work, the killing must be widespread, large-scale, and kept up forever to stop new owls from moving in. A “voluntary,” patchy plan is likely to fail, not because the science is wrong, but because the only version that is politically acceptable isn’t organized enough to actually work.

“Dumbest Thing Ever”: The Political Attack on the Plan

The scientific reasons for the plan have been buried under a loud, high-profile political fight. Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) has led the charge against it, introducing a resolution to cancel the plan. That effort failed in a 25-72 vote, but the political damage was done.

Senator Kennedy called the 17-year, peer-reviewed study “bone-deep, down-to-the-marrow stupid,” adding, “I have rocks in my driveway that are smarter than this.” He called the plan an example of arrogant government, comparing it to Mao Zedong’s failed “kill the sparrows” campaign in China.

His most effective attack was branding the plan as “DEI for owls.” With this phrase, he presents the invasive Barred Owl as just a “better hunter” and the native Northern Spotted Owl as a “lesser” owl. This changes the story: the government’s plan is no longer about saving a species, but an unfair “quota” to “tip the scales of nature.” It cleverly links the complex owl problem to the heated political debate over Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), painting it as another example of “woke” government meddling. In his speeches, Senator Kennedy made false claims, stating the Barred Owl “is not hurting” the Spotted Owl and that the Spotted Owl is “not on the endangered species list.”

Is the Owl Cull a Smokescreen for Logging?

The political situation is even more complex. There is a “rare split” in the Republican party. While Senator Kennedy attacks the plan as “woke,” the Trump Administration, through Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, has strongly supported the Biden-era plan. Burgum, who is reportedly “under pressure from loggers,” personally called Kennedy to ask him to back off. Kennedy refused, telling the press Burgum “was mad as a mama wasp” and “needed to call somebody who cared what he thought.”

This fight between two Republicans has fueled a strong and believable suspicion among opponents: that the whole plan is a “bait-and-switch.” The NSO’s “threatened” status is the main legal roadblock to logging in protected old-growth forests. The American Forest Resource Council (AFRC), a logging industry group, has long claimed that the real threats to the NSO are Barred Owls and wildfires, not logging.

Critics allege the logging industry supports the cull for two reasons. First, it lets them publicly blame the Barred Owl for the NSO’s decline, shifting the focus away from logging. Second, it could create a “mitigation” market. Logging companies could offer to pay for the $1.35 billion owl cull (a figure based on a $3,000 per-owl federal contract) as their “offset” in exchange for permits to start logging again in the NSO’s critical habitat.

A Painful Split: Saving the Species vs. Saving the Animal

The plan to kill the owls has caused a painful split in the environmental community. It forces people to choose between two core values of conservation.

On one side, “Team Individual” includes over 80 animal welfare groups, like Animal Wellness Action and PETA, who have sued to stop the plan. They call it an “inhumane,” “unconscionable,” and “colossal reckless” slaughter. Their moral focus is on the suffering of each animal. They argue the plan will “orphan countless owlets” and will accidentally kill the very Spotted Owls it’s supposed to protect. Their lawsuits claim the plan violates environmental laws by failing to “take a ‘hard look’ at adverse impacts.”

On the other side, “Team Species” includes many of the biggest conservation groups, like the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, and the Center for Biological Diversity. They are supporting the plan, but with heavy hearts. They call it a “gut-wrenching” but “necessary” choice. Their focus is on the entire ecosystem and the survival of the species. They believe the science shows “the spotted owl will certainly go extinct without” this. But their support is not a blank check. They demand that the owl cull happen along with “increased habitat protections for all remaining mature and old-growth forests.” They refuse to fall for the “bait-and-switch.”

A Crisis of Our Own Making

This conflict is not really an “owl problem.” It is a human one, a massive problem of our own making. The clashing stories of scientific necessity, political name-calling, animal welfare, and hidden economic motives, are a mirror of our own divided and conflicting values. Each argument, whether calling the plan “stupid” or “inhumane,” shines a light on one small piece of a crisis that we created.

Both parts of this war were started by people. Decades of logging destroyed the Northern Spotted Owl’s ancient forest home, leaving it weak. Then, our changes to the landscape created the “human bridge” for the Barred Owl to invade: a competitor the native owl was never evolved to fight.

The core legal and moral argument against the plan, made by groups like the Earth Law Center, is that it punishes owls for a human-created problem. It holds the Barred Owl responsible while demanding “no parallel responsibility for humans to stop degrading and destroying owl habitats.” The deep anger over the plan comes from this basic unfairness. It’s a “brute force” attack on a symptom, while the real, human-caused disease and habitat loss remains the one thing that is politically and economically protected.

Loading...