Re: Biden feds draw up final plan to kill hundreds of thousands of barred owls in PNW

On 05 Jul 2024, "Leroy N. Soetoro" <[email protected]>
posted some news:[email protected]: 

> https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/feds-draw-up-fina
> l- plan-to-kill-hundreds-of-thousands-of-barred-owls-in-pnw/
> 
> It is time, federal wildlife managers have decided, to kill invasive 
> barred owls in the Pacific Northwest that threaten native spotted owls
> with extinction.
> 
> The barred owl, ransacking forests and pushing deeper into fragile 
> habitats, is outcompeting the spotted owl. It’s bigger, more
> aggressive, and eats anything in the spotted owl’s territory. Wildlife
> managers see no choice but to reduce the number of barred owls in some
> areas, to create refugia where spotted owls may persist.

Put some of those owls in San Francisco.  Maybe they'll eat the drug 
addicts and homeless.  Win win.

> The control program, outlined in a final Environmental Impact
> Statement announced Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
> is intended to result in the annual removal of less than one-half of
> 1% of the current North American barred owl population — but it’s
> still a lot of birds: as many as 500,000 barred owls, over the next 30
> years, depending on how fully the program is implemented.

Heck, pay me $35 an owl carcass and I'll move out there to help shoot them 
buggers with a .222 or maybe an AR-15.

> The policy is the result of more than 15 years of review and study and
> collaboration, said Bridget Moran, Oregon Fish and Wildlife Office
> deputy state supervisor.
> 
> “We are at a crossroads. We now have the science. … There is time for
> us to act now, but that window is closing,” Moran said.
> 
> “We are wildlife biologists, we don’t take this on lightly. We do so 
> because we know the Endangered Species Act requires us to do
> everything possible to protect endangered species, and we are doing
> that.” 

How about considering tranny annoyances as barred owls so folks can shoot 
them?

> Under the program, trained professionals would be deployed in about
> half of the areas where spotted owls and invasive barred owls are
> found in the northern spotted owl’s range, and also deployed to limit
> the barred owl’s invasion into California. Hunting by the general
> public would not be allowed. Shooters are to call barred owls into
> close range to confirm the species’ identity, and kill them with a
> shotgun. Lead shot will not be used.
> 
> To implement the program, USFWS must first obtain a permit under the 
> Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The agency could then designate interested 
> tribes, federal and state agencies, or landowners to shoot the owls.
> The “removal specialists,” as the agency calls them, would have to
> meet training and competency requirements set by the agency and
> monitor and report results.
> 
> The USFWS conducted a scoping and public comment process on its draft 
> environmental impact statement last winter and will announce a final 
> record of the decision in at least 30 days after the formal
> publication of the final statement in the Federal Register on Friday.
> 
> The plan is essentially unchanged from the draft statement, which 
> attracted strong responses, including more than 8,600 public comments.
> 
> Bob Sallinger, executive director of Bird Conservation Oregon, said
> while his organization supports fighting extinction of any species and
> believes the science is there to support some removal of barred owls,
> the plan is “fatally flawed.

Only if you're a barred owl.

> “We think this plan will result in a tremendous number of dead barred
> owls but likely won’t save the spotted owl,” Sallinger said. “The
> rigor in terms of the training, the requirements, the oversight and
> accountability isn’t there and if just a fraction of the birds shot
> turn out to be spotted owls, the outcome would be devastating. Our
> recommendation was they really needed to go back and rethink this with
> something much more targeted and sustainable.”
> 
> Hilary Franz, Washington’s commissioner of public lands, wrote Deb 
> Haaland, Department of Interior secretary, last month, expressing
> concerns about the scope of the program — proposed on 14 million
> acres, it’s the largest-ever raptor-killing plan, and without
> precedent in any wildlife control program, she noted.
> 
> Others saw no choice.
> 
> Claire Catania, executive director of Birds Connect Seattle (formerly 
> Seattle Audubon) had to take a deep breath before talking about the 
> program, which the organization supports, with caveats. “This is not 
> something we are celebrating. It is a necessity, and a terrible 
> necessity,” Catania said. “It is so unfortunate that this is where we
> are … if there were any other paths forward for us to consider, you
> better believe we would be at the front of the line advocating for it,
> but it is just not there.”

Just have Fauci infect some with bird flu or COVID and turn them loose.

> Catania predicted conservationists will be facing more such moments. 
> “These types of scenarios are unfortunately going to be facing us more
> and more as we head deeper into the climate crises, and we are going
> to be faced with bad choices,” Catania said. “We can’t just stand up
> for endangered species when it is palatable to do so.”
> 
> In Washington, areas the agency has mapped where barred owl removal
> could potentially take place include the entire Olympic National Park
> and Olympic National Forest, state lands adjacent to them, and the
> Yakama reservation. The soonest any large-scale implementation of the
> program is likely to begin is next spring.
> 
> A generalist predator, the barred owl is not only a threat to the
> spotted owl, but to Northwest ecosystems more broadly, noted Robin
> Bown, barred owl strategy lead for the USFWS. The barred owl is a
> devastating new predator to animals naive to their threat, from
> salamanders in Oregon to crayfish in California, with both species at
> risk, Bown said. 
> 
> Much has been done to try to rescue the northern spotted owl, the
> poster animal of the campaign to save the old-growth forests of the
> Pacific Northwest. The owl was listed as a threatened species in 1990.
> Then, in 1994, a federal judge approved the Northwest Forest Plan,
> devised under the Clinton administration, to set aside some 24 million
> acres of old- growth forests on federal land. The multispecies
> protection plan was intended to preserve habitat for the spotted owl
> on federal lands in the places scientists deemed most important for
> its survival, from Washington to California.
> 
> The owl depends on old-growth forests home to its primary prey — small
> mammals that thrive in the complex, unique environment of old-growth 
> forests — including flying squirrels and tree voles.
> 
> But the owl, already greatly reduced in numbers by logging before the 
> Northwest Forest Plan, faces continued habitat loss from wildfire and 
> logging on unprotected lands. And now, it is mortally threatened by a 
> crushing invasive competitor.
> 
> Barred owls were first documented in British Columbia in 1959 and in 
> Washington, Oregon and California in the 1970s. Today, there are well
> over 100,000 barred owls in the northern spotted owl’s territory in
> Washington, Oregon and Northern California, according to USFWS.
> 
> Katherine Fitzgerald, northern spotted owl recovery lead for USFWS,
> said after watching the northern spotted owl decline for so many
> years, “There is some momentum to get them some help.
> 
> “Absolutely we don’t see it lightly, but I am looking forward to
> seeing some efforts on the ground. I would like to see those declines
> slowed and reversed.”

Now that I think about it, a .17 HMR would do pretty well against those 
owls too.