COLUMN: Barred owls spared? Other birds in danger?

People are doing things in Washington D.C. that can have widespread effects in the bird world. A bipartisan group of Congress members is asking the Interior Department to NOT try to shoot 450,000 barred owls.

That same Interior Department has now suspended legal opinions that would hold corporations liable for any accidental bird deaths they may cause while doing business.

Barred owls

The congressional appeal about plans to kill barred owls in Oregon, and other western states, reads, “In the spirit of fiscal responsibility and ethical conservation, we urge you to halt all spending on this plan to kill a native range-expanding North American owl species.”

Last year, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (part of the Interior Department) approved the controversial owl-killing plan. It would extend over three decades in Oregon, California, and Washington. The congressional group estimates the cost of hiring owl hunters would be $1.3 billion.

None of Oregon’s representatives signed on.

The owl-killing was aimed at keeping the barred owl from further impinging on the range of its cousin, the spotted owl. While barred owls thrive around people, spotted owls are endangered and limited largely to old growth forests. They will not nest near your home or in your barn. These owls (fewer than 3,000 remain of the regional subspecies) are found in scattered pockets of mature forests in western Oregon, between the coast and the east slope of the Cascades.

No response yet from the Interior Department.

Doing business

The Interior Department’s legal ruling duplicates what was in place during the first Trump administration, and has reversed what existed under the Biden administration. So now fossil fuel, mining, construction and wind energy companies cannot be held federally liable for any birds killed as they do business. This is a classic and ongoing fight between conservation groups and business groups. It centers on the meaning and scope of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act passed in 1918.

That law was passed after long lobbying by the original Audubon Society and other groups aimed at stopping the feather trade. That was shooting egrets, herons and other birds to use their feathers on women’s hats. It also led to government-regulated hunting of waterfowl and other game birds.

Prior to 1918, in most parts of the U.S., anybody could shoot any birds at any time for any reason. This likely contributed to the extinction of the Carolina parakeet and passenger pigeon.

As decades passed, this treaty law has been used to hold companies liable for birds killed in waste ponds, by oil spills, and has been considered for fining wind turbine companies as birds die in their windmills.

The latest ruling from the Interior Department: “The Department of the Interior has temporarily suspended certain legal opinions issued under the previous administration to allow for a comprehensive review.”

For now the extraction industries are relieved. Conservation groups will continue to fight.
 Neither of these stories is over.

For information about upcoming Salem Audubon programs and activities, see www.salemaudubon.org, or Salem Audubon’s Facebook page.

Harry Fuller is an Oregon birder and natural history author of “Freeway Birding” and the newly-published “Birding Harney County.” He is a member of the Salem Audubon Society. Contact him at [email protected] or atowhee.blog. His “Some Fascinating Things About Birds” column appears regularly in Salem Reporter.

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