Killings of invasive owls to ramp up on US West Coast in a bid to save native birds

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've already been removed.

Trained shooters will target barred owls over 30 years across a maximum of about 23,000 square miles (60,000 square kilometers) 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 owl s.

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 to preserve warblers by killing cowbirds that lay eggs in warbler nests. The barred owl removals would be among the largest such effort to date involving birds of prey, researchers and wildlife advocates said.

Native to eastern North America, barred owls started appearing in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s. They've quickly displaced many spotted owls, which are smaller birds that need larger territories. An estimated 100,000 barred owls now live within a range that contains only about 7,100 spotted owls, according to federal officials.