Plan to kill 450,000 owls creates odd political bedfellows — loggers and environmentalists

The strange political bedfellows created by efforts to save spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest just got stranger.

Already, Republican members of Congress were allied with animal rights activists.

They don’t want trained shooters to kill up to 450,000 barred owls, which rival the northern spotted owls, in a single attack. US Fish and Wildlife Service plan It was approved last year and will unfold for three decades.

Now the timber industry is aligning with environmentalists on culling owls.

Some logging advocates fear canceling the plan would slow timber harvests. About 2.6 million acres of forestland in Western Oregon managed by the Bureau of Land Management are managed with resource management plans tied to forward-looking barred owl culling, according to Travis Joseph, president and chief executive of the American Forest Resource Council, a trade association that represents mills, loggers, timber buyers and other stakeholders in the region.

In a mid-October letter to Congress, Joseph said the region could produce at least 278 million board feet per year under current plans and “has the potential for significantly more.”

If the cull is rescinded, he said, the federal agency would likely have to restart Endangered Species Act consultations for the northern spotted owl, which is listed as threatened. It’s a process that can take years. According to the letter, this would “create unacceptable risks and delays to current and future timber sales.”

Timber production targets set by the Trump administration may also be in jeopardy.

This summer, momentum grew from conservative Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana to stop the cull. a solution To reverse the Biden-era plan.

The move reflected an unlikely alliance between some right-wing politicians and animal rights advocates who said it was too expensive and inhumane. Some Democrats also opposed the cull order, and companion legislation in the House has bipartisan supporters.

The risks are high. Many conservationists and scientists argue that northern spotted owls will become extinct if their competitors are not kept in check. Originally from eastern North America, barred owls are larger, more aggressive, and less picky when it comes to habitat and food, giving them an advantage when competing for resources.

Last week Politico E&E News reported Kennedy said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum asked him to retreat from efforts to stop the owl-killing plot. The legislator said he would still prepay for the exit.

“I don’t think the federal government should be saying to God, to nature – whatever you believe in – this can exist, that can’t exist,” Kennedy told E&E. “The barred owl is not the first species to shift its territory, and it won’t be the last.”

Kennedy did not respond to The Times’ request for comment. A Ministry of Internal Affairs spokesman said they were unable to respond to the investigation due to the government shutdown.

“It’s odd for a Southern Republican to take up the owl issue, especially when the consequences would impact Western Oregon BLM timber sales,” Joseph said in an interview. “This will lead to reduced revenues in counties, impact employment and lead to the extinction of the spotted owl.”

This stance partly aligns with that of environmental groups such as the Environmental Protection Information Center and the Center for Biological Diversity, which support culling barred owls to help barred owls in their areas. It’s an unexpected overlap, given the long history of environmentalists fighting to preserve old-growth forests in the region the owls call home.

Tom Wheeler, EPIC’s executive director, said culling barred owls could lead to an increase in timber harvesting on BLM land in western Oregon but could lead to more habitat protection for spotted owls overall. wide range. The presence of spotted owls triggers protections under the Endangered Species Act. If the cull increases the spotted owl population as intended, that would mean more scarecrows.

“This puts us in an awkward position, frankly,” Wheeler said. “But our advocacy for barred owl removal is not based on treating the northern spotted owl as a tool against the timber industry and timber harvesting. What we are trying to do is ensure the continued existence of the species.”

Many Native American tribes support controlling barred owls in the region. The nonprofit Intertribal Timber Council said in a letter to Congress last week that barred owls pose more of a threat than the spotted owl.

“As a generalist predator, it poses risks to a wide range of forest and aquatic species that have varying degrees of social and ecological importance to tribes, including species integral to traditional food systems and watershed health,” wrote the council, which aims to improve management of natural resources important to Native American communities.

According to the letter, the Hoopa Valley tribe in Northern California has been involved in sanctioned hunting of owls since 2013 and has observed that the spotted owl population has stabilized over time.

However, groups such as Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy argue that the plan to eliminate such large numbers of barred owls over a large area would not work except for a high owl mortality rate. More barred owls will fly toward where others have been removed, said Wayne Pacelle, president of both groups.

This makes the habitat important and the prospect of further loss to logging in Western Oregon devastating, according to Pacelle.

To stop the owl culling plan, both houses of Congress will need to pass a joint resolution and President Trump will need to sign it. If successful, the resolution would prevent the agency from pursuing a similar rule unless expressly authorized by Congress.

plan was already facing setbacks. In May, federal officials canceled three related grants totaling more than $1.1 million. a study this would eliminate barred owls from 192,000 acres in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.