The spotted owl has been categorized as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since the 1990s. Now, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is proposing a deadly solution: hunting close to 500,000 barred owls in West Coast forests over the next 30 years in hopes of restoring the spotted owl population. "The species' future is extinction if we don't manage barred owls," Robin Brown, a biologist for the USFWS, said to NBC News.Â
Spotted owl populations have steadily declined by "about 75% in the past two decades and continue to decline about 5% each year, largely because of barred owls," NBC News said. "Human-driven habitat destruction spurred the barred owls to expand across the country" from the eastern U.S. where they are a native species, NPR said.
Animal activists are not convinced that killing barred owls is necessary. "We don't think it's ethical" to be shooting them "because they are currently doing better in the existing environment and outcompeting other species," Jennifer Best, a director at the nonprofit Friends of Animals, said to NBC News. In a joint letter, activists said that the USFWS proposal was a "colossally reckless action, almost unprecedented in the history of American wildlife management."
Â
Reversing habitat damage is another potential solution. "Protecting old-growth forests in areas where spotted owls do live and can live is the most important thing — and working to restore habitat that has been destroyed," Best said. "It's not an easy or quick fix." | 
