Gina Garey is the Maine state director of Animal Wellness Action.

Will members of the government save 450,000 barred owls from a plan devised by its own agency (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) that would slaughter them all? Does lethal management of wildlife ever work? Will it work with this raptor population? Does a plan this costly make sense in light of the possible outcomes?

Lost in the noise of a lengthy government shutdown, a different kind of battle rages between government officials and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, who have stepped up to introduce a fast-track resolution (under the Congressional Review Act) in the House and Senate (H.J. Res 111 and S J. Res 69) — the only tool available to them — to prevent an overreaching, expensive and unworkable plan from being implemented.

Readers may be interested to learn how the decision by USFWS to kill tens of thousands of protected forest owls in the Pacific Northwest and California came about. If it proceeds, it will be the largest-ever raptor killing program instituted by any nation.

In its record of decision in September of 2024, the USFWS issued its final environmental impact statement for its barred owl management strategy in the Pacific Northwest and California. At issue is the protection of the beloved and critically endangered Northern and California spotted owls’ survival in their rapidly dwindling habitat.

Barred owls, not native to the area, have expanded their range, migrating for several decades into the region, competing for habitat with their native cousins the Northern and California spotted owl. These two native species require healthy and abundant old growth forests to thrive. A more aggressive species, the barred owl has made inroads over the years, however, barred owls may also inhabit nearby younger forests and are more adaptable to alternative habitats.

As a critically endangered species, USFWS devised its management plan to reduce competitive pressure on spotted owls, with conservationists concerned for the Northern and California spotted owls’ very survival.

But does killing tens of thousands of one species of owls in the deep forest ensure the survival of another? To this question, environmentalists, wildlife biologists and conservationists have weighed in and a lawsuit was filed by Animal Wellness Action and the Center for A Humane Economy in U.S. District Court in November of 2024 to stop the overreaching plan targeting a species that has been protected for over a century by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

The organizations have rallied more than 240 organizations to oppose the plan, including more than 20 local Audubon societies. The groups noted that USFWS has a poor record of wildlife control successes in vast, unbounded areas.

Additionally, in an omission by USFWS, the decision failed to estimate the cost of implementing the plan. It has since been estimated that hiring hunters to identify the correct species in the deep woods and on national park lands, and shoot to kill, will cost an estimated (whopping) $1.35 billion.

Among the researchers, biologists and forest and species management experts who have weighed in, Eric Forsman, dean of forest owl biologists who worked at the U.S. Forest Service for decades, notes, “As soon as you stop, barred owls will be back, and you will be back to square one.”

Kent Livezey, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and author of 14 peer-reviewed papers on barred and spotted owls, said: “I do not believe that spending more than 1 billion dollars to kill almost one-half million barred owls is worth the carnage, expense, precedents and distraction from what is the more important issue: protection of biodiverse old-growth forests.”

And, Mark Davis, DeWitt Wallace professor of biology at Macalester College, writes: “It is impossible to exterminate barred owls in a region, and even if it were, they would be rapidly replaced by owls immigrating from the eastern and northern populations.”

Objections to the plan continue to arise even as lawmakers in Congress use a provision known as the Congressional Review Act to undo the USFWS decision. Their move has unleashed opposition by the logging industry to the GOP plan to stop the carnage.

On Oct. 29, Sen. John Kennedy, leading the charge on behalf of forest owls, forced a vote on his continuing resolution on the issue, which the Senate voted down. Maine Sen. Susan Collins was among the 25 senators who voted in support of the resolution.

Kennedy and his supporters are now looking for ways to defund the plan.

“I don’t think the federal government ought to be telling God, nature — whatever you believe in — this one can exist, this one can’t,” Kennedy said. 

I tend to agree with the senator. How do we justify the mass killing of one species of owl to rescue another from going extinct, given the potential outcome?

The battle for the lives of barred owls can be won. It’s not too late. I for one will be calling on our congressional delegation in Maine to do just that.