Washington Post – Obama administration plan would kill rival bird to save spotted owl:
To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside.
It’s interspecies affirmative action with a shotgun. What could possiblie go wrong?
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So what could go wrong?
What could go wrong with poisoning the streams in the Smokies to kill off native brook trout to make way for rainbow trout?
What could go wrong with accidentally introducing snakes into Guam?
What could go wrong with intentionally introducing rabbits into Australia?
Answer – no one knew ahead of time, but things went wrong all the same. Maybe nothing will go wrong this time, but it sure seems like a Brady Bunch plan for fixing an environmental problem.
None of those situations are anything like this. This is more like saying we shouldn’t be trap nutria in the Chesapeake Bay, or put up emerald ash borer traps in Knox County, or (most similarly) remove black locust in the upper midwest.
You mean we should treat barred owls like an invasive species? I’m not an expert on barred owls. Are you saying they were introduced.
I Googled a little and I didn’t get that impression. I get the impression they’re just very similar species with very similar niches and ranges. Barred owls are so close to spotted owls genetically that they sometimes interbreed.
If I’m reading this right the government’s Brady Bunch solution to messing up the spotted’s habitat and making it more suitable to the barred is to continue messing up the spotted’s habitat and making it more suitable to the barred and to make up for it by shooting the barred. Yeah, that’ll work.
*insert comment about playing god*
Les, are you familiar with Radiolab? It is a radio show- I sometimes catch it on WUOT in the middle of the day, maybe on Fridays, but I’m not sure. It is a GREAT science-based show, always very interesting stories- check it out at radiolab.org. The WAY they tell the stories is much better than, say, This American Life.
I recently heard a podcast of Radiolab, episode called Oops, about a warbler in Michigan that was about to go extinct in the early 80s I think. Scientists thought the birds’ decline was due to cowbirds, so the forest service (or National Park Service?) started trapping & killing, but that didn’t bring the warblers back. There’s much more to the story but I won’t ruin it for you.
Now I’ll go read the rest of your story- just thought you might liked to know about this older story.
Have a great day!
I found that episode and listened to it. Same story as here: as long as the habitat makes the other species better adapted, the preferred species can’t flourish. Darwin won’t be denied. To make the warblers flourish they had to give them the kind of habitat they needed.