XPost: alt.birdwatching.owls, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, or.politics
XPost: sac.politics

Put a bounty on the barred owls and send kids with airguns after them.
Those owls will be half gone in a year.

PORTLAND, Ore. — An environmental nonprofit is sounding the alarm over the federal funding cuts and hiring freeze instituted by President Donald
Trump's administration, which it said could threaten the population of
Oregon's endangered spotted owl.

The widespread layoffs and cuts instituted by the Trump administration
have set off a series of protests across the country and around Portland,
some of which have focused specifically on the thousands of U.S. National
Parks and Forest Service workers who have been fired.

The Northwest Forest Plan and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
require the endangered owl population to be monitored, but the Center for Biological Diversity said in a news release that the federal freeze means
the monitoring "either won't occur or will be greatly reduced."

Most of the monitoring work for the owls, as well as other Pacific
Northwest endangered species, is performed by seasonal biologists who do
field work in the spring and summer, such as placing acoustic recorders to listen for owls. But those biologists need to be hired in the initial
months of the year in order to be ready to go, according to the nonprofit.

"I'm deeply concerned that we're not able to collect most of the data we
need to monitor the health of the beautiful northern spotted owl because
of a lack of staff," said Taal Levi, Ph.D., an associate professor of
wildlife biology at Oregon State University and a collaborator on the
spotted owl monitoring project. "We need this data every year to ensure
that our efforts to protect these owls and the old forests they depend on
are succeeding."

The monitoring efforts help inform BLM decisions about timber sales and
fuel reduction projects, the nonprofit said, and the lack of monitoring
could impact those decisions.

"This assault by Trump and Musk on the civil servants who help save
endangered species across the country is just beginning to rear its ugly
head, and spotted owls could be their first victim," Noah Greenwald,
endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said
in a statement. "As a former seasonal spotted owl surveyor myself, I know first-hand how important keeping track of these inquisitive birds is to
their survival. Decades of work has gone into ensuring the owls aren’t
harmed by logging on our public lands. If we can’t do the surveys, the
logging may need to stop."

The spotted owl has become particularly well-known in Oregon as an example
of both the successes and frustrations of the federal Endangered Species
Act. After the spotted owl became listed as endangered in 1990, the
Northwest Forest Plan was developed to designate and protect millions of
acres of old growth forest — a decision that has been hailed by environmentalists and criticized by the logging industry.

But the spotted owl remains endangered three decades later, with further population declines largely attributed to the spread of the barred owl to
the U.S. West Coast over the past 50 years. Barred owls tend to be larger
and more territorial, crowding out the smaller species.

The situation spawned a new controversy last year when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adopted a plan to shoot and kill about 450,000 barred
owls over 30 years to protect the spotted owl population in Oregon,
Washington and California.

In fact, it's already intersected with the Trump administration; last
month, a group of western Oregon lawmakers called on Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, run by billionaire Elon Musk, to cancel the barred
owl culling plan because it would be too expensive.

https://www.kgw.com/article/tech/science/environment/trump-cuts-threaten- spotted-owl/283-a5e2707b-d72b-4a61-9543-486273b8527c

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