Biologists Kill Bully Owls to Protect Endangered Owls

Source: Associated Press

Biologists Kill Bully Owls to Protect Endangered Owls

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO — Feb 28, 2016, 7:06 PM ET

A biologist and contractor with a lumber company is at the heart of an experiment sanctioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: killing bully owls to protect endangered owls.

Biologist Lowell Diller, a contractor for Green Diamond Resource Co., a lumber company managing timberland in Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties, kills barred owls, which are known to bully the smaller northern spotted owl, the San Jose Mercury News reported (http://bayareane.ws/1QlXvDn).

The barred owl has invaded California from the eastern United States, muscling out northern spotted owls upstate, and spreading south toward San Francisco. A Pacific Northwest native, the spotted owl is threatened with extinction and has become the symbol of the region's timber conservation battles.

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She says old-growth habitat destruction is to blame for pitting the two owls against each other.

Shawn Cantrell, Defenders of Wildlife's northwestern program director, suggested that barred owl removal should play a short-term role in spotted owl conservation, while habitat restoration should play a bigger one. "When we mess things up, we have an obligation to fix them," he said.

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/biologists-kill-bully-owls-protect-endangered-owls-37264008