Officials with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) recently announced an extension through August 2021 of a controversial experimental program to shoot barred owls that are encroaching on spotted owl habitat in Pacific Northwest forests. Research has shown that despite 30 years of massive reductions in federal timber sales in the region deemed necessary to save the owl from extinction, perhaps the biggest contributor to falling spotted owl populations is the barred owl, which is more adaptive, an aggressive nester and an overall better competitor for habitat resources.

Barred Owl

The spotted owl was listed as a threatened species and qualified for Endangered Species Act protections in 1991. The U.S. Forest Service adopted the Northwest Forest Plan in 1994 that greatly reduced federal timber harvests on more than 27 million acres in the region and forced hundreds of forest-related businesses, from logging companies to mills, to close while devastating many rural communities. Meanwhile, despite the timber sale reductions and setasides, spotted owl populations continued to plummet: One research area showed sites where a spotted owl was found declined from 88% in 1991 to 32% in 2013.

To combat the declines, the “owl culling” program began in one study area in 2013 and expanded to three other areas by 2016 on a mix of public and private timberland in Oregon, Washington and northern California. According to a recent FWS update on the program, the experiment has successfully removed  barred owls in targeted areas, resulting in reduced and declining barred owl populations. In areas where no removal occurs, barred owls continue to increase. Across all study areas, barred owl removal appears to have stabilized spotted owl populations, though at low levels, compared to continuing declines of spotted owls in areas where no barred owls are removed.

In one case, there is evidence that barred owl removal has substantially improved the apparent survival rate of spotted owls on a northern California study area, though the total spotted owl resident population remains relatively low there and is not increasing significantly yet.

The program remains controversial and has been taken to court by an animal welfare group. Though more than 2,400 barred owls have been culled in the study areas so far (with a target of 3,600), and some success has been shown, some researchers believe culling is not a long-term solution when barred owl populations are increasing throughout the Pacific Northwest, not just on timberlands. Barred owls have slowly expanded from their traditional range east of the Mississippi, up into Canada and down the West Coast and have been encroaching on spotted owl habitat since the 1950s.

One news article cited a researcher who believes that while barred owl culling is relatively effective, the program would have to be greatly expanded and pursued indefinitely to make a big impact. “We’d have to do it forever,” he says. “The barred owls aren’t going anywhere.”