If you’ve spent a significant amount of time on the South campus of the University of Georgia, you’ve probably heard talk of the “Warnowl,” and maybe even seen it once or twice. Students have affectionately awarded this name to the barred owl that frequents the trees surrounding the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Odum School of Ecology. Witnessing the owl’s appearance often feels like a magical experience, and normally hurried students will stop still to marvel at it.
Take a minute to consider the term ‘intrinsic value’, or the value something holds just for being itself, outside of any instrumental purpose. If one barred owl can prove so meaningful to our campus by existing, why wouldn’t we question an initiative to cull (i.e., selectively slaughter) over 450,000 of them? While we admire barred owls like the Warnowl here on our Georgia campus, barred owls on the opposite side of the country are being persecuted.
Over the past century, barred owls have expanded their range west of their historic territory, possibly due to human-caused changes in the landscape. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, these immigrant populations of barred owls in the Pacific Northwest are outcompeting smaller, native northern and California spotted owls for resources. USFWS claims that under “maximum implementation,” the Barred Owl Management Strategy will remove less than half of 1% of the nationwide barred owl population using trained sharpshooters.
Regarding the range expansion of barred owls, three possibilities exist:
- Barred owl encroachment on northern spotted owl habitat is a human-caused issue, in which case it is unethical to collectively punish barred owls for human failures;
- It is a naturally occurring phenomenon, in which case human intervention is inappropriate;
- The issue is a complex sum of the two preceding options, and therefore intensive management strategies have the potential to disturb the environment further, rather than facilitating a return to ecosystem stability.
Elaborating on the third point above, culling as a conservation strategy has been globally and historically unsuccessful. We have seen this time and again with white-tailed deer and coyotes in the United States, grey squirrels and ruddy ducks in Europe, and kangaroos in Australia. This can be attributed to a phenomenon called the “vacuum effect.” Resource openings created by culling attract migrants of the same species, and the local population replenishes itself. We end up right back where we started, with sparser funding and blood on our hands.
Other than their difference in size, barred owls and spotted owls are visually similar to each other. Even well-trained marksmen will have difficulty differentiating between the species during their nocturnal activity period, and this will inevitably result in spotted owl fatalities. This is further complicated by barred and spotted owls observed interbreeding to produce hybrid owlets. The future implications of this phenomenon are still widely unknown.
A visual comparison of the barred owl (top) and the northern spotted owl (Bottom).
In October of this year (2024), the organizations Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy filed a lawsuit against USFWS in U.S. District Court in Washington. The groups claim that barred owls are disproportionately blamed for spotted owl decline, stating that the studies backing the USFWS barred owl management plan are funded by the timber industry.
This conflict of interest speaks to the reliability of the research; we have seen countless evidence of corporate meddling in other conservation issues like overfishing and climate change. There is a lack of concrete evidence to prove that eradicating barred owls from spotted owl territory will be enough to save the species from extinction, given additional factors in play.
USFWS cites habitat loss, quite briefly, as the second major threat to spotted owl survival. There are some efforts underway to address this issue, including the US Forest Service’s habitat conservation plan and the Bureau of Land Management’s forest fuels management plan to curb wildfire risk. However, these band-aid solutions do little to get at the root of the issue, deforestation of old-growth tree stands through logging practices.
In the Pacific Northwest, logging is integral to the local economy. Oregon and Washington are the two leading states in softwood production. While California is further down on this list, it also has a notable history as a lumber-producing state. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Barred Owl Management Strategy diverts attention from logging-related habitat destruction.
Species compositions within ecosystems are constantly changing, with or without human interference. Our capacity to do more harm than good in this situation must not be overlooked; barred and spotted owls are being exploited by organizations that stand to gain from them politically and economically. It is time to expose the motives of USFWS and the timber industry and hold the true perpetrators of spotted owl decline accountable.
To make your voice heard, you can follow the link below and submit a comment under docket number FWS-R1-ES-2022-0074:
https://www.regulations.gov/search/docket?filter=barred%20owl%20management
For guidance on how to more effectively participate in the regulatory process through public comment, you can also look here:
Lastly, if you ever get lucky enough to spot the Warnowl on campus, pause for a few minutes to take in the moment. You may find yourself a little late for class, but time spent appreciating the intrinsic value of wildlife is never wasted.
