An unusual alliance of republican legislators and animal rights defenders, with others, creates storm clouds for a plan to protect a threatened owl by killing a more common.
Last August, the US Fish and Wildlife Service Approved a plan To draw around 450,000 owls in California, Oregon and Washington for three decades. The barred owls were spotted owls from north to danger, in the northwest of the Pacific, as well as owls identified in California, pushing them out of their territory.
Supporters of the approach – including conservation groups and eminent scientists – believe that slaughter is necessary to avoid disastrous consequences for spotted owls.
But the coalition maintains that the effort is too expensiveImpractable and inhuman. They urge the Trump administration to cancel it and the legislators could continue a reversal thanks to a special action of the congress.
Last month, Times discovered, federal officials canceled Three subsidies related to the owl in California Department of Fish and Wildlife totaling approximately $ 1.1 million, including a study This would eliminate the owls barred by more than 192,000 acres in the counties of Mendocino and Sonoma.
A barred owl is located on a branch in the wooded hills on December 13, 2017, outside of Philomath, Ore.
(Don Ryan / Associated Press)
Two were Nixés before federal funding was allocated and I have never taken off, said Peter Tira, spokesperson for State Wildlife Agency. Another, a collaboration with biologists of the University of Maryland to better understand the models of dispersion of owls in Western forests, was almost finished at the end.
“Under the direction of President Donald J. Trump, we eliminate waste programs, reducing unnecessary costs and ensuring that each dollar serves a clear goal,” a spokesman for the US Fish and Wildlife Service said when asked if the subsidies had been dismissed.
Another lever would be for the congress completely overturning the owner plan using the Congress Review Act.
The government’s office of responsibility concluded in a decision at the end of May that the plan is subject to this law, sometimes used by new presidential administrations to cancel the rules issued by federal agencies in the last months of previous administrations. The two Congress Chambers should adopt a joint resolution to undo it.
During the months preceding the determination of the GAO, bipartite groups of members of the American chamber wrote two letters to the interior secretary in the reasons why the owl plan should not go ahead. A total of 19 Republicans and 18 Democrats signed the letters, including seven California legislators-David Valadao (R-Hanford), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), Gil Cisneros (D-Covina), Josh Harder (D-T-Tracy), Linda T. Sánchez (D-Whittier), Jim Costa (D-Fresno) and Adam GRIE (D-MERCED).
Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Texas), a Ardent supporter of TrumpSigned the initial letterAnd “currently explores other options to put an end to this unnecessary plan, which prioritizes a kind of owl on another, and waste hard taxes won,” said Emily Matthews, director of communications.
Kamlager-Dove said Also said earlier this year that she opposed the death of one species to preserve another. “And as an animals, I cannot support the widespread massacre of these beautiful creatures,” she said.
If a resolution is introduced, adopted and signed by President Trump, the plan will be finished. The Fish and Wildlife Service would not be authorized to present a similar rule, unless explicitly authorized by the Congress.
Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, who supports the reduction of the owls of owls Bard, called the “very scary” Congressional Review Act.
It is “an intrusion of congress in the fields where we are counting on high expertise and scientific understanding,” he said. “These are vibrations against science.”
A spotted owl in California is presented inside the national forest of Tahoe in California on July 12, 2004.
(Debra Reid / Associated Press)
Wheeler said he thought he was more likely that the program would be depressed in the middle of budget cuts than those eliminated by law.
“If we are not going ahead with the withdrawal of the barred owls, this will mean the extinction of the northern spotted owl, and it will probably mean the extinction of the spotted owl from California,” he said.
Science is for its part, he said. A Long -term field experience has shown That where the barred owls were killed, the people of spotted owl stabilized.
For the activist of the protection of the animal Wayne Pacelle, who galvanized the opposition to the plan of owl, it is a turn full of hope of the events.
“Even if they had complete funding for this, we do not think it could succeed,” said Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy. The terrestrial area where the barred owls must be checked is simply too large, he said. And the owls barred elsewhere, he said, will simply fly and replace those who are slaughtered.
As little as 3,000 Northern spotted owls are left on federal lands. Raptors Brown with white spots are listed as threatened by California and Federal Endangered Species Act.
The spotted owls in California are also in decline and federal fauna officials have Protection of endangered species For two populations.
The two sides of the ferocious debate agree that the barred and spotted owls compete for the nesting and food sites – as Wooddrats and flying squirrels from the North.
Barred owls and spotted owls are apparently similar and can even cross. But the barred owls are more aggressive and slightly larger, in addition to being more generalist with regard to what they will eat and where they will live, allowing them to build their raptor companions.
Federal fauna officials and certain environmentalists consider invasive barred owls.
While the Europeans sank the large plains, they removed the fire and planted trees, allowing the barred owls to develop west of their origin in the east of North America, Biologists believe.
“I would call this an invasion, and I would call these non -native species,” said Wheeler.
On the other hand, some see the arrival of the owl along the west coast as an expansion of the natural distribution area.
There are also contradictory views of the cost of exterminating so many owls.
Opponents estimate that it will cost around $ 1.35 billion, extrapolated from a $ 4.5 million contract Awarded to an Amerindian tribe in northern California last year to drive around 1,500 owls over four years.
A 2024 research document, However, concluded that the elimination of owls prohibited in the northern spotted owl would cost $ 4.5 million to 12 million dollars per year at its initial stages, and would probably decrease over time. At 12 million dollars a year, the plan at 30 would cost $ 360 million.
The action of the well-being of pacelle animals and the center for a human economy also continued the Fish and Wildlife Service at the American State of Washington District for the plan. Animal friends, another animal welfare group, complaint filed in Oregon.
The Wheeller environmental information center intervened in prosecution to defend the plan, and these cases continue to move forward.
