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I would like to see the data supporting the theory that eradicating Barred Owls has a beneficial effect on Spotted Owls. Did it not occur to the """experts"", the Fish and Wildlife department, that the Spotted merely moved elsewhere when it's nest was supposedly usurped by a Barred? NOT eaten by the Barred? Does the literature suggest that Barreds eat ONLY owls? That is not true.

I would like to see the hard evidence of Barreds eating Spotteds. Did they F&W collect owl pellets, analyzed them for DNA and do the math? Have they actually witnessed a Spotted being killed by a Barred? Do they know that Great Horned Owls will also kill owls? Do they know that Ravens will kill owls? Even Gulls will kill owls. So will raccoons, possums will go for their eggs, and some people will shoot an owl thinking it is killing his chickens...when the biggest predator of all avian eggs is the black rat.

Once they've eradicated Barreds, does the F&W believe that Spotteds will then rebound? At this point the gene pool is shallow. And also understand that just killing off Barreds doesn't mean the old growth forest will magically reappear, like Jack's Beanstalk. Voil, a', no Barreds and stand back, the doug fir tree is going to grow three hundred feet in thirty minutes.

Calling the F&W department 'experts' is ludicrous. Consider the slaughter they committed near Ilwaco, trying to eradicate Double Crested Cormorants from a small island where they roosted, so that they wouldn't eat migrating salmon smolts. All the cormorants did was move to the bridge that crosses the River to Astoria, and from the safety of the bridge, they are eating even MORE salmon smolts.

Now to compound the insanity, they're going to try and drive them BACK to the island.

This isn't science. THis isn't even logic. They're dithering about rather than doing something about the truly invasive speices, the ones that have and are currently destroying populations of native birds. I'm talking the House Sparrow. The Starling. Those two are relentless, aggressive and prolific. We are going to lose the American kestrel to Starlings, as they like the same size nest box and destroy the eggs of the kestrel. House Sparrows and Starlings need eradicating, but..well, the F&W doesn't want to spend the time or money doing that.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

And to say that only a few Barreds will be removed and only in a remote part of the Olympic peninsula where Spotteds are nesting is wrong, too. Right now, Seattle Animal Control is killing barreds, and NOT in the Olympics. Seattle Animal Control is NOT the Fish and Wildlife, they are contractors.

And what makes anyone think that barreds will stay away from Spotted habitat? Drive down Delphi Road to the Capitol Forest and see what the DNR is doing. It is logging the entire Forest. THey're taking old growth, young growth and leaving one or two spindly trees per fifty acres to say they're not clear cutting. My boots they're not clear cutting, and they're leaving slash and scotch broom. LOSS OF HABITAT is what is driving the Spotted to extinction, and the DNR is enabling it by removing all habitat save that that is 'protected'.

Saying 'they' won't kill 'my' barred owls, the one living in the vicinity of my home in south Thurston county, is gaslighting. I didn't band it. I don't own it. For all I know, it will move to the Olympics. For all the F&W knows, it has never seen a spotted owl in its life. You can't differentiate one that hunts rodents and one that takes the occasional Spotted.

Face it. Humans are responsible for bring the Spotted Owl to the brink of extinction. Barreds '''invading' From the east is just gaslighting. Barreds are owls. Not monsters, not avian Terminators. They're just owls.

Killing one species of owl with the crossed fingers hope hope it works for another species is not science. It's stupidity.