Human Ecology and Economy further entangled with Mama Nature

Owl vs. Owl: Should the Forest Service shoot the spotted owl’s new enemy, the barred owl?

Well what ya gonna do? With all this human confusion between need and demand, Mother Nature has never listened to what we or our government try to demand of Her.

So here we go again.

The future for spotted owls currently looks so bleak that wildlife managers in the Pacific Northwest have proposed a desperate plan: They want to kill thousands of barred owls. British Columbia approved plans last week to shoot barred owls within 5 kilometers of spotted owls. The U.S. government may not be far behind.

“It’s a vanishing sight, rarer and rarer,” said Dale Herter. We were standing 10 feet away from a spotted owl on a steep slope near Mount Rainier. Herter is a biologist who has studied spotted owls in the Cascades for 22 years and has documented the owl’s accelerating decline.