U.S. wildlife officials beginning next year will drastically scale up efforts to kill invasive barred owls that are crowding out imperiled native owls from West Coast forests, under a plan finalized Wednesday that faces challenges from barred owls returning after they have already been removed.
Trained shooters will target barred owls over 30 years across a maximum of about 23,000 square miles in California, Oregon and Washington. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service goal is to kill up to 452,000 barred owls and halt the decline of competing northern spotted owls and California spotted owls.
Killing one bird species to save others has divided wildlife advocates and is reminiscent of past government efforts to save West Coast salmon by killing sea lions and cormorants, and
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