This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.

Over 400,000 barred owls will die over the next 30 years if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moves forward with its misguided plan to save northern and California spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest. Tell the agency that cruelly shooting one species of owl in the hopes of saving another species of owl is not the solution, and it should instead create a wildfire and climate change mitigation plan as well as incorporate non-lethal ways to reduce barred owl and spotted owl habitat overlap.

One of 400,000 barred owls who may die at the hands of USFWS.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is considering six alternatives as part of its strategy to protect spotted owls from barred owls, which all include lethal removal in Washington, Oregon, and California.

Northern spotted owls rely on old-growth forests, but the trees that have provided their homes have also become a primary source of wood for logging leading to habitat loss and fragmentation, which continues to be a major threat to their survival. Meanwhile, human development has enabled their larger relatives to move west and dominate in their range exacerbating the problem — now barred owls are going to pay the ultimate price.

A spotted owl who will not benefit from the wholesale carnage undertaken for “the species' benefit.”

Both wildfires and the climate crisis are also key drivers in barred owl encroachment on the habitat range of northern spotted owls, and although climate change was acknowledged as a threat, it was not addressed by the agency's plan at all.

FWS should also have more thoroughly considered non-lethal methods of removing barred owls such as translocation, hazing, and preventing reproduction. Moving forward, the agency should collaborate with other states and regions of less concern to the northern spotted owl to relocate barred owls. The agency should also implement a combination strategy incorporating nest destruction, egg removal, hazing nest sites, and sterilization, which could certainly be successful without interfering with spotted owl populations if administered with care.

By using all non lethal strategies in conjunction with habitat restoration, wildfire management, and climate change mitigation, northern spotted owls could be protected, and barred owls could be spared.

This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.