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To save spotted owls, US officials will kill hundreds of thousands of other owls

U.S. wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls in coming decades.

Past efforts to save spotted owls focused on protecting the forests where they live, sparking bitter fights over logging but also helping slow the birds’ decline. Because barred owls are aggressive hunters, removing them also could help other West Coast species that they’ve been preying on such as salamanders and crayfish, said Tom Wheeler, director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, a California-based conservation group. Researchers say barred owls moved westward by one of two routes: across the Great Plains, where trees planted by settlers gave them a foothold in new areas; or via Canada’s boreal forests, which have become more hospitable as temperatures rise because of climate change.

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