Editor:
Who? Who will speak for the owls?
Certainly not the NCJ, whose PR piece (“Combating the Barred Owl Invasion,” Oct 10) “presented” its readers with two glaring omissions.
The first of these was the missing information that the spotted owl tends to like the barred owl.
In fact, a spotted owl will often choose a barred owl as its mate.
Barred owls are better at teaching the young “bi-racial” chicks to hunt in a flattened and decimated landscape, such as that typically left by clearcutting.
This threat to the “racial purity” of the spotted owl means that at least some of its genes survive, despite that the logging industry will likely succeed in its slaphappy plan to mow down every stick and twig of the spotted owl’s natural habitat.
The second bit of information missing from the article was a specific name for any of the “coalition of 75 wildlife protection and animal welfare organizations … objecting to the management strategy” (of shooting the barred owls). Thus, the reader is deprived of easy access to connect with anyone interested in joining the fight against the government’s eugenic plan. The one quote provided from a barred owl defender had no attribution.
An opportunity for real investigative journalism seemed to have eluded the NCJ in this one. Although EPIC was formed from the struggle to “save the ancient forest,” it now has become a mouthpiece for greenwashing of the sort that murders wildlife rather than preserves it.
How?
Elizabeth Olson, Eureka
Editor:
I applaud Kimberly Wear’s objective and thorough summary of the federal government’s plan to cull barred owls. While the plan is in response to their impact on spotted owls, too many people are framing this as an owl-vs.-owl issue. It’s much bigger than that.
As Kimberly’s article makes clear and as EPIC’s Tom Wheeler has said, it’s really an owl-vs.-ecosystem issue. Barred owls are generalist, opportunistic predators wreaking havoc on many of our native forest species. I personally have encountered headless and mangled giant salamanders, almost certainly barred owl victims, on trails in our local parks in recent years.
Many people and organizations, mostly “animal rights” advocates, are contesting the plan. I argue that, in our current state of global conservation triage, ecosystem integrity and species survival (which of course are intertwined) outweigh individuals’ “rights.”
Kimberly’s article quotes a letter from a coalition of these organizations as advocating for non-lethal management actions to protect spotted owls and their habitats. Any such actions will be either ineffective or too time-consuming. The FWS plan clearly states that owl culling is just part of a multi-pronged approach that includes spotted owl habitat improvement, but that takes time that the northern spotted owl probably doesn’t have. No one wants to have to shoot barred owls, but that may be the only hope of saving the northern spotted owl.
I also contend that animal rights arguments are heavily influenced by human bias. We argue for the rights of animals that appeal to us. I guarantee that if we were talking about some sort of insect threatening the survival of the spotted owl, we simply would not be having this discussion. Everyone would be on board. We need to take our biases out of the equation and do what’s best for native species and their habitats.
Ken Burton, McKinleyville
Editor:
Shooting 400,000 owls is simply wrong. Lethal aggression characterizes our country’s policy of international competition for our interests, and assassinating these owls follows the same pattern of response. Humans and owls compete for the forest. The northern spotted owl is failing in the competition, and humans are perverting the Endangered Species Act into a weapon to secure more of the forest for themselves, whether it be for timber, wood pellets, recreation, jobs in management, science or agency service. $8.5 million was already spent killing an experimental 3,000 owls! There is no end in sight to this sort of rescue operation. Humans have destroyed the NSO’s habitat and now intend to destroy more of its denizens in the name of recovering it. Meanwhile the forest continues to be cut.
Northern spotted owls and barred owls interbreed. But USFWS’s abstract focus is on genetic purity. They plan to shoot the offspring! Of course the owls compete, as all individuals do, with each other and with other species. But, through interbreeding, the hybrids will be more resilient, with the flexibility, resourcefulness and strength of the barred owl.
If we want to save the forest, let’s save the forest! Let’s be straightforward and honest about it!
Ellen Taylor, Petrolia
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Combating the Barred Owl Invasion
This article appears in Why California Housing Costs are So High.
Here is what I wrote on the topic, and was published earlier today (Note: we have lost far more “critical habitat” due to catastrophic wildfires the past 30 years than could ever have been logged, due to environmental “protections” claimed to “save” this animal): https://www.capitalpress.com/opinion/colum…
Here is what I wrote on the topic, and was published earlier today (Note: we have lost far more “critical habitat” due to catastrophic wildfires the past 30 years than could ever have been logged due to environmental “protections” claimed to “save” this animal): https://www.capitalpress.com/opinion/colum…