Tornado Alley (PROG)

[DesertDrifter]

Scientists Hunt One Owl to Save Another from Extinction

Updated: 12/20 6:43 pm
(AP) - An experiment to see if killing invasive barred owls will help the threatened Northern spotted owl reverse its decline toward extinction is underway in the forests of Northern California.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday that specially trained biologists have shot 26 barred owls in a study area on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation located northeast of Arcata, Calif. They plan to remove as many as 118.

The service is spending $3.5 million over six years to remove 3,600 barred owls from sites in Oregon, Washington and California. Barred owls migrated from the East in the 1950s and have become the single biggest threat to spotted owl survival.

Scientists want to see if spotted owls will increase when competition from the more aggressive barred owl is eliminated.

http://www.actionnewsnow.com/content/localnews/story/Scientists-Hunt-One-Owl-to-Save-Another-from/vPYdG6gKm0-2FaISmgpCGw.cspx?rss=1275

Okay, i have never been a fan of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, but since they were major players in destroying the economies of hundreds of small mill towns in the name of the spotted owl, this choice of theirs to make one species of owl good and one bad (both are native to north america-- the barred owl migrated from the east as a result of their habitat (tree cover) expanded due to planting of trees on homesteads) is about as stupid as trying to eliminate coyotes by shooting them. if the habitat exists out here for barred owls, they will occupy it, that is a basic environmental principle that their "biologists" don't have a grip on. Although the barred owls chase off the timid spotted owls, they do interbreed with fertile offspring, so the idea that a minor plumage difference and assertiveness means a death sentence to them is ludicrous.

The spotted owl poster children for misplaced environmentalism are on their way out anyway, as the "protection" of their habitat failed (the Northwest Forest Plan stopped logging even anywhere near their occupied habitat, ironically, removing thinning activities from old growth douglas-fir forest left them vulnerable to stand replacing wildfires... more occupied habitat is lost to wildfire now (thousands of acres at a crack) than has been lost to logging over the last 50 years (by a country mile).

The narrowly focused "biologists" fail to understand that a forest is a dynamic entity and cannot be fixed in time and character... particular types of cover (old growth, for instance) move about the landscape over time.. drawing lines on a map that congress voted on (the NWFP) is not respected by nature. The spending of millions to shoot barred owls (an unproven method of slowing their expansion) is such a waste of time and money and wildlife that it ticks me off to even think about it.(as you can probably tell by my rant)

Protecting things to death is happening in many areas... it is a result of the biologists exerting political muscle instead of their brains. sigh.

P.S. the article said they are conducting an experiment on the Hoopa reservation, yet the next sentence says they already plan to implement it over a three-state area... they are getting as stupid as the National Marine Fisheries Service in their zeal to take a heavy hand to the wrong problems.