The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to save owls by killing owls. The government’s plan is to kill up to 450,000 barred owls across millions of acres over the next 30 years. The justification is that barred owls, which are aggressive and adaptable, are edging endangered spotted owls out of their range. To save one species, the government is executing the other.
The “barred owl solution” is one of many lethal interventions run by the nation’s wildlife-management complex. Under the banner of “wildlife services,” federal and state agencies spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars killing animals. The most notorious of these agencies is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, which kills millions of animals a year, often at the request of large ranching operations.