Aired: July 30, 2013 on KMUD Radio
Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/dan-young-kmud/federal-study-asks/
(BARRED OWL CALLS)
DAN YOUNG: That’s the territorial call of the barred owl. This forest dwelling owl species is originally from the eastern U.S. But since the beginning of the twentieth century its territory has been expanding west. It’s now believed to be crowding out the northern spotted owl. Barred owls are larger than northern spotted owls, more aggressive, and have a broader diet. These are the main reasons why government wildlife biologists believe the barred owl is more resilient to the habitat losses that have reduced spotted owl populations in the Pacific Northwest.
And now the federal Fish and Wildlife service wants to do an experiment to see whether spotted owl recovery will be helped if the agency systematically removes barred owls from Pacific Northwest forests. On July 23rd the agency announced the publication of its final Environmental Impact Statement detailing nine options for the removal experiment.
The agency’s preferred plan involves removing barred owls continuously for four years on four test sites in Washington, Oregon and northern California. The agency estimates that over 3600 owls would have to be removed. Some owls would be relocated to zoos and other facilities that could keep them humanely for the rest of their lives – but most would be killed. The total price tag for the project would be a little under three million dollars. Separate ongoing owl demographic studies in the test areas would establish the removal’s short and long term effects on spotted owl populations.
Robin Bown is the lead Fish and Wildlife biologist on the team that developed the Environmental Impact Statement. Here Bown gives some of the background for why her agency devised this experiment.
ROBIN BOWN: Starting in the 2008, and in the 2011 Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan, we identified barred owls as one of the two primary threats to the spotted owl. The other being continued habitat loss as a result of wildfire, and from some types of harvest particularly on non-federal lands.
DAN YOUNG: Bown explained that the barred owl removal experiment is only one of twelve actions in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Spotted Owl Recovery Plan. The goal of the study is to figure out whether removal of barred owls actually has a lasting effect on spotted owl recovery. But the agency is also trying to determine whether removal is even feasible.
In northern California the owl removal study is planned to take place on a combination of federal, tribal and private lands totaling just under 159,000 acres in area. The Hoopa-Willow Creek study area lies east of Eureka in Humboldt and Trinity counties. On the federal and privately owned portion of the study area barred owls will be left as a control, while the species would be removed on the roughly 90,800 acres of the Hoopa Valley Reservation included in the study area.
Local conservation and wildlife advocacy groups seem neither strongly supportive nor intensely critical of the experiment. Rob DiPerna, Industrial Forestry Reform Advocate at Arcata’s Environmental Protection Information Center, gave these comments:
ROB DIPERNA: We’re still sort of ruminating over the implications of this EIS. At this time what I can say to you is that our place in this is to try and point out how we’ve gotten to this point with northern spotted owls, and why the population has been in such dire shape for the last twenty years. And that primarily has to do with logging on public lands and private lands. And while the situation on public lands has somewhat improved thanks to the Northwest Forest Plan and the implementation of the Late Successional Reserves, we still have great concerns over the extensive habitat loss that’s occurring in California on private lands, and that continues. And therefore we want to sort of point out to everyone that we’re in a dire situation with spotted owls. The population is not doing very well and one possible solution in addition to considering this barred owl EIS is certainly the idea that we need to preserve more habitat, more contiguous habitat, and more quality habitat for spotted owls.
DAN YOUNG: I also spoke with Redwood Region Audubon Society Conservation Committee Chair and Vice President Chet Ogan. The Audubon chapter does not have an official stance on barred owl removal, but Ogan was willing to share some personal opinions.
CHET OGAN: I hate to see any animal killed for the sake of another. But in the sake of trying to preserve the spotted owl it may become necessary to eliminate the barred owl on the spotted owl territories. The concerns that I would have – you don’t want to just turn anybody loose out there with a gun to go out and start shooting owls. It’s got to be a marksman, it’s got to be a trained marksman, it’s got to be a knowledgeable marksman. So it’s got to be someone who knows what a barred owl looks like, knows what a spotted owl looks like. And if they are targeting barred owls they should be out there with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife service person, and probably with a biologist who knows that territory.
DAN YOUNG: Federal Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Bown said that a decision has not been made about who will do the removal on federal and private lands. However she said that it would probably not be employees of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and that it might be researchers from the USGS. On the Hoopa Reservation, the Hoopa tribe would be directly responsible for choosing who did the removal. But in both cases, Bown emphasized that there are very specific parameters of how the removal of the barred owls will be handled.
ROBIN BOWN: You use the territorial call of the bird to try to draw them in to the area. They are very aggressive at defending their territory, so they will move in. When they’re in, in the case of lethal removal, you call them in, you get them close, you make sure that you’ve identified that they are a barred owl. We require two people or two forms of identification. That is you have to either get a visual and an auditory calling documentation, or you have two people who can identify that in fact that is where the barred owl is. And then you would remove it using a shotgun.
DAN YOUNG: Although she mentioned that the EIS covers concerns that the study’s removal practices could disrupt marbled murrelet nesting, Bown did not feel that the impact would be significant.
Gary Rynearson, Manager for Forest Policy and Communications at Green Diamond timber company, says that his company supports the experiment, and believes the results it yields will be helpful to the timber industry. In fact Green Diamond has already been involved in another experiment to see the effects of removing barred owls from northern spotted owl habitat.
GARY RYNEARSON: Green Diamond has been conducting a joint scientific experiment with the California Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. While we’ve been doing this sine 2009, the results will be analyzed at the end of this year to have a better understanding of what the reaction has been by the northern spotted owl in those areas where the barred owl was removed. What we have found in preliminary results is that where the barred owls were removed, the spotted owls have come back.
DAN YOUNG: In late August the federal Fish and Wildlife service will be announcing its final decision on the study. After that the agency will need to figure out what researchers will carry out the study. Permits will also have to be granted from other sections of the agency in order to allow the killing and relocation of the birds. According to Bown, on the Hoopa Reservation, where owl populations have already been extensively surveyed, the removal of barred owls could begin this fall. In other areas, owl populations would be surveyed next spring and removal of barred owls would begin in fall of 2014.
Reporting for KMUD, this is Dan Young.
Daniel Young: Reporting and Podcasts 