Wednesday, the U.S. Senate resoundingly voted to protect science-based wildlife management by rejecting a proposal, S.J. Res. 69, to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) Barred Owl Management Strategy, an effort influenced by some of the nation’s leading anti-hunting and animal rights activists. Leading up to the vote, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) worked directly with the nearly 60 U.S. Senators in the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus to see this proposal defeated.
It is estimated that Northern spotted owls range from 3,000 to 5,200 birds in total. One of the biggest threats facing spotted owls is the non-native, invasive barred owls, which outcompete the threatened, native spotted owls. To address this issue, in 2024, FWS released a comprehensive plan to authorize the science-based removal of barred owls across certain portions of the spotted owl range in the Pacific Northwest. This management strategy was developed by the professionals at FWS, in collaboration with the effected state and tribal wildlife agencies and other important stakeholders, under the Biden Administration and is strongly supported by FWS in the Trump Administration, demonstrating that science-based wildlife management is not a partisan issue.
Since inception, S.J. Res. 69 was not to be taken at face value of “protecting owls”, but rather this was nothing more than a disguised effort by animal rights activists to ignore scientifically sound, yet difficult, wildlife management decisions. Read more