The Fish and Wildlife Service is planning to kill nearly half a million barred owls to save spotted owls from extinction by deploying trained shooters into West Coast forests.

The agency released its strategy aimed at halting the decline of spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington, and California, which will undergo a 30-day comment period before a final decision.

According to documents released by the agency, it plans to remove up to 450,000 barred owls over 30 years.  

Coming from the eastern part of the country, these birds have invaded the territory of northern and California spotted owls on the West Coast, leading to competition for food and habitat that the smaller owls cannot match.

Despite controversies over logging, previous conservation efforts aimed at protecting the forests where spotted owls live significantly slowed their decline. 

However, officials warn that the recent proliferation of barred owls is undermining those achievements.

“Without actively managing barred owls, northern spotted owls will likely go extinct in all or the majority of their range, despite decades of collaborative conservation efforts,” said Kessina Lee, Fish and Wildlife Service Oregon state supervisor, in a press release.

This preferred strategy would result in the annual removal of less than one-half of 1% of the current North American barred owl population.

“Barred owl removal, like all invasive species management, is not something the Service takes lightly,” said Lee. 

“The Service has a legal responsibility to do all it can to prevent the extinction of the federally listed northern spotted owl and support its recovery while also addressing significant threats to California spotted owls,” she added.

The shootings would likely begin next spring, officials said.

This initiative has drawn controversy among wildlife advocates and conservationists.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service is turning from protector of wildlife to persecutor of wildlife,” Wayne Pacelle, a member of the advocacy group Animal Wellness Action, told the Associated Press. 

He also argued the program would fail because the agency can’t prevent more barred owls from migrating into areas where some are killed.

According to Robin Bown, the barred owl strategy leader for the Fish and Wildlife Service, barred owls are already being removed in spotted owl habitats, with around 4,500 removed since 2009, including those in California’s Sierra Nevada region to prevent established populations.

In areas where barred owls are more established, officials plan to reduce their numbers, though they recognize they won’t be able to eliminate them completely.

They won’t allow public hunting, rather designated government agencies, landowners, Native American tribes, or companies with documented training in owl identification and firearm skills will carry out the killings.

Opponents argue that the mass killing of barred owls could severely disrupt forest ecosystems and cause accidental shootings of other species. They also challenge the idea that barred owls are unnatural on the West Coast.

Northern spotted owls are federally protected as a threatened species. 

A federal protection proposal for California spotted owls from last year is still pending.

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Under former President Donald Trump, government officials removed habitat protections for spotted owls at the request of the timber industry. 

After the Department of the Interior said those political appointees relied on faulty science to justify their weakening of protections, President Joe Biden reinstated them.