Government Declares ‘Forever War’ Against North American Forest Owls

You’ve heard me sound the alarm about the costly, inhumane, and unworkable plan by our own federal government to massacre nearly half a million North American barred owls. Today, I am happy to tell you that Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are answering our call to saddle up and stop this madness.

Today, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution to nullify the Biden Administration’s shoddy plan to shoot up to 500,000 barred owls over a 30-year span. A companion Senate resolution is expected to follow this week.

We already convinced the Trump Administration to shut down grants for some preliminary shooting projects approved by their predecessors. That means hundreds of owls are being spared. That includes orphaned owls left to fend for themselves after their parents are gunned down.

But sparing these animals just covers a fraction of the animals at risk from a monstrous plan. We must nullify the whole scheme. It’s not salvageable. It’s a rotten idea. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is turning from wildlife protector into persecutor. The agency is mimicking the animal-killing instincts of USDA’s Wildlife Services program. And an agency charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act is using the law as a sword rather than a shield.

Native only to North America, barred owls have been protected for nearly a century under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Their only offense is that they have adapted and survived — engaging in a modest range expansion, just like hundreds of other birds do. In response to their adaptations, the federal government is declaring war on them. 

Mistaken Identity Kills, Orphaning of the Juveniles

The contract killers the federal government would deploy may mistakenly shoot spotted owls in the nighttime shoots. They surely will orphan thousands of barred owl chicks. They’ll enter our national parks and cause other animals to scatter in fear — animals who have known these lands only as sanctuaries.

But here’s the key flaw in the plan: even if the government orchestrates the shooting tens of thousands of barred owls, other birds will fly right back in. Successful shooting creates a void, and surviving owls in adjacent areas will fill it — again and again. That means the plan would require permanent, taxpayer-funded killing across 24 million acres, including inaccessible wilderness, rugged backcountry, and even 14 national park units such as Yosemite, Olympic, Crater Lake, and Sequoia.

It is, quite simply, unworkable. It will be a forever war against a North American owl. Fought with electronic calls, night scopes, and shotguns, in some of the most cherished and wildest places in America.

As Dr. Eric Forsman, the U.S. Forest Service biologist who helped pioneer protections for the spotted owl, put it plainly: “Control across a large region would be incredibly expensive, and you’d have to keep doing it forever.”

Some of our friends in the environmental community seem ready to subordinate key wildlife protection values, such as suspending federal legal protections for other owls, in pursuit of a Hail Mary pass for spotted owls. I am not prepared to shoot 30 barred owls for every spotted owl alive, and to get nothing good out of it for spotted owls.

This plan has no possibility of success. And it shifts the debate away from the well-documented cause of spotted owl decline: habitat loss and degradation.

And let’s remember that this plan will put spotted owls at direct risk of mistaken-identity kills. Barred owls and spotted owls are look-alike cousins, and we’d be asking novice shooters to distinguish between them in the dead of night, with nearly identical silhouettes. 

The Congressional Review Act Resolution Is a Powerful Tool to Stop This Kill Plan

We are deeply grateful to the lawmakers who are standing up to stop this plan, including more than 20 lawmakers led by Reps. Troy Nehls, R-Texas; Josh Harder, D-Calif.; Scott Perry, R-Pa.; and Adam Gray, D-Calif.

But we cannot win without you.

If we don’t step up, who will fight for the barred owl? Who will challenge a plan that offers no hope of success and only guarantees suffering? Who will stand up against the use of our wildlife protection laws against wildlife? Who will stand up and call out the largest massacre of birds of prey ever contemplated by any government in the world?

Please stay engaged. Congress has the power to stop this. But we must demand that lawmakers do so.