U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to open nine units of the National Park Service in California to forest owl killing in unworkable plan
(Seattle) — Today Animal Wellness Action and The Center for a Humane Economy called on superintendents serving Yosemite National Park, Redwoods National Park, and seven other National Park Service units in California to resist a plan by a sister agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), to participate in a scheme to kill almost a half-million barred owls in the Pacific Northwest over the next 30 years. The USFWS filed a Record of Decision on barred owl management in late August, and just days ago, AWA and the Center filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle to block the overreaching and unworkable plan targeting a species protected for a century by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
The unprecedented scheme to kill barred owls — a species native to North America — has been initiated to reduce social competition between that species and its look-alike cousins, the Northern Spotted owl and the California Spotted owl. Spotted owls have experienced significant population decline over decades because of habitat destruction, particularly the harvesting of old growth forest. The groups claim in their filing that the plan, originally proposed by timber industry forest scientists, is not only ill-conceived and inhumane, but is also destined to fail as a strategy to save the spotted owl.
In the wake of the filing of a federal lawsuit to block the kill plan, the plaintiff organizations highlighted a deeply disturbing element of the plan: opening up 14 units of the National Park Service to owl hunting, which will persist for at least 30 years if the scheme is implemented as proposed. Nine of the 14 units are located in California, two in Oregon, and three in Washington state.
“This inhumane, unworkable barred-owl kill-plan is the largest-ever scheme to slaughter raptors in any nation, and a big stage for the killing will be more than a half dozen of California’s iconic national parks,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. “The kill plan has a zero percent chance of successfully protecting spotted owls, but it will produce an unheard-of body count of a long-protected owl species in our national parks and it will come with detrimental effects on other species.”
Over decades, barred owls have engaged in range expansion, which is a naturally occurring ecological phenomenon and it is a core behavioral and adaptive characteristic of many species of birds and mammals, including barred owls. Former USFWS wildlife biologist Kent Livezey noted, in a peer-reviewed paper, that 111 other native bird species engaged in “recent” range expansion, with 14 of them expanding over an area larger than the area where barred owls are moving. “To say that this plan is unprecedented is an understatement,” said Livezey, who has extensively published on spotted owls, barred owls, and range expansion of native bird species in the United States.
USFWS’s plan calls for granting of “take” permits under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that allows volunteer hunters with little training in identifying barred owls to take to the forests to kill barred owls, including national parks and wilderness areas on national forests. The plan may result in mistaken identity kills of spotted owls and other owl species, who are generally nocturnal and live dozens of feet above the forest floor and in dense evergreen forests. The disturbance alone would have adverse effects on a wide range of species, along with the direct killing of so many other species. Night hunting of the owls is planned.
The units to be opened to owl hunting in California are Redwood National, Whiskeytown National Recreation, Muir Woods National Monument, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Point Reyes National Seashore, Lassen Volcanic National Park, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park, Yosemite National Park, and Devils Postpile National Monument.
“Allowing owl hunting in Yosemite, Lassen Volcanic, Muir Woods, Yosemite and other units of the National Park Service has the potential to disrupt the millions of dollars generated in local economic activity,” added Pacelle. “Visitors to our amazing national parks and monuments will be alarmed and appalled that an unthinkable forest-owl kill plan is being executed in our national parks.”
The Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Wellness Action have built a coalition of more than 224 organizations opposing the USFWS barred owl kill-plan. That coalition includes more than 20 local Audubon organizations. The coalition also includes owl protection and raptor rehabilitation centers across the West.
Click on the names of each unit below to read each letter:
Devils Postpile
Golden Gate
Lassen Volcanic
Muir Woods
Point Reyes
Redwood
Sequoia & Kings Canyon
Whiskeytown
Yosemite