Article on spotted owl from the PR director of the Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center

[eridani]

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20110218/NEWS/110219984/in-clash-of-barred-owl-vs-spotted-owl-let-nature-be-the-judge

In the 1990s, countless loggers lost their livelihoods when the feds froze the timber industry in the forest habitats deemed critical to the spotted owl's survival.

At the Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center, we had the product of their outrage delivered to us swaddled in bloodstained blankets: innocent owls shot, nailed to signs and lynched from trees. These acts of retaliation were even more misplaced than it appeared.

Every single owl brought to us was anything but a spotted owl.

If anything, murdering the spotted owl's competition only helped the beleaguered species, a fact that apparently came to the attention of wildlife biologists.

We now face an ironic twist on the original controversy.

Wildlife lovers are furious as government wildlife agencies consider “saving” the spotted owl by systematically slaughtering its competition, the barred owl.

The barred owl's natural migration from the East to
spotted owl country over the past few decades has resembled the Goths storming the declining Roman Empire


Matthew Randazzo V

Chairman
Clallam County Democratic Central Committee

State Committeeman
Washington's 24th Legislative District

Public Relations Director
Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center
www.NWRaptorCenter.com

[uppityperson]

1. I've read similar recently missing the fact that the lumbar industry wasn't stopped just to save an

owl, but that the owl was an indicator of a healthy forest. Or at least that is how I remember it. If there were no spotted owls, the forest wasn't healthy.

We have barred owls in our area and they are very interesting birds. They are friendly and sociable. They visited in the evening and see what progress we made when we were building our shop. They sit on the bars around the chicken run (which has net over it) and watch the chickens. They hiss, snarl, hoo hoo hoo hoooooooo in the evening.

Since they tolerate humans much more than the spotted, and since they easily interbreed with the spotted, the spotteds are going to be gone soon. We will lose an indicator species which is really too bad. But killing the barred isn't a good strategy either.