A no-holds-barred owl war

Article Date: 2004-05-31   Source: http://www.oregonlive.com   Comments: 0

By Michael Milstein

Oregon, U.S.A. - The barred owl has what you might call a serious image problem.

It is known in the Northwest as an invading bully that has tossed one heckuva monkey wrench into efforts to save the northern spotted owl. As loggers were shut out of most of the region's public forests to let the spotted owl be, the barred owl had a different idea.

It moved in. Fearlessly. Decisively.

And spotted owls fled.

Barred owls loom about 20 percent larger than spotted owls. They don't much care that their smaller cousin is protected by the Endangered Species Act. And they don't take kindly to company.

"I've been hit by barred owls a couple times while I've been out looking for spotted owls," says Bob Pearson of Packwood, Wash., who studies both birds. Rapping him is an owl's way of saying, "Back off."

It's becoming clear to biologists that spotted owls are often getting the same reception. Even with diminished logging, spotted owl numbers are crashing in parts of Washington where barred owls are numerous. In Oregon, in one region near Roseburg, almost nine of every 10 spotted owls either moved or disappeared after a barred owl came calling.

"We go back to where they were and they're just not there anymore," says Eric Forsman of the U.S. Forest Service, one of the top spotted owl researchers in the Northwest.

An analysis of the spotted owl in coming weeks is expected to outline the threat in more detail, as part of a review sought by the timber industry. It will lead to a decision by the Bush administration on whether the spotted owl remains protected.

But with a new bird on the block, there's little doubt the spotted owl's future now hinges on more than the moss-draped old growth trees it frequents. Biologists don't know what, if anything, to do. Hire the Oregon Zoo's new condors as spotted owl bodyguards?

Put a bounty on barred owls?

Don't laugh. There's talk of evicting barred owls in places, to see how spotted owls do. And the timber industry wants to know: If barred owls occupy spotted owl trees, can those trees then be cut down?

Even the Audubon Society of Portland, a bird's best friend, is conflicted. Officials there helped file the original lawsuit that halted logging to protect the spotted owl. But they have a pair of barred owls nesting on their land in Portland and, says Susan Ash, acting conservation director, "They're very cool birds."

Their hooting calls have eight notes to a spotted owl's four, probably why they are also known as "hoot owls" or "eight hooters." Their wings stretch more than three feet across. They're not as finicky about food as spotted owls, gobbling up just about anything they can catch.

Very little bothers them, except for great horned owls, their only real predator. Although they probably would not take kindly to a price on their heads.

Audubon of Portland is trying to figure out where it stands -- or, shall we say, perches -- on the idea of taking out one owl to aid another.

"It's been the source of a lot of tension within the organization," Ash says. "Any time you talk about killing one species, it's difficult. Now we happen to be talking about a very charismatic owl species."

Blurring the picture is one big question: Did barred owls swoop in on their own, or did they ride the coattails of human development? A century ago, they seemed content in forests back East. Then they gradually headed west and south, with birds first appearing in Washington in the 1960s, Oregon in the 1970s and California in the 1980s. Their numbers have been taking off since.

"It's sort of a quandary," says Rocky Gutierrez, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Minnesota who has long studied spotted owls. "What do you do when one species invades the range of another, especially when the other is on the endangered species list?"

If barred owls were obeying their own wanderlust, then whatever headaches they cause for the spotted owl might be chalked up to nature.

But if people somehow paved the way, there's the stickier question of whether to try to undo what's been done.

"It's hard to know if we should sit back and let nature take its course, if that's really what's happening, or if we should try to step in in some way," Ash says.

Forsman, who has watched the spotted owl for decades, suspects the barred owl acted alone, moving to the Northwest like so many fleeing Californians.

"Philosophically, you ask yourself if you really should try to interfere," he says.

Gutierrez doesn't buy the single-suspect theory. He thinks the owl had help. Perhaps by stomping out wildfires on the Great Plains, he says, people let trees grow up along rivers. They would have become avian highways west.

"It sure seems peculiar that they waited thousands of years to make this leap across the continent," he says. "I just don't think it's coincidental."

But they both concede that, in the end, it may not matter much, because no one will ever know for sure. Even if people gave it a roost in Northwest forests, it's far too late to send the barred owl packing.

"Any time you look at natural systems, you're going to have these perturbations that throw things off," Forsman says. "Probably the best thing to do now is maintain a diverse mix of habitat" to support a mix of species.

It's as if barred owls crashed a party where the nervous host doesn't know how to tell them they weren't invited.

Perhaps that explains one of their other nicknames, the "laughing owl."

"They almost cackle," Pearson says. "Sometimes they sound like a couple of crazy people."

There may be at least a few thousand barred owls in the Northwest, and the number is rising. There may be as many as 8,000 pairs of spotted owls. And there are some "sparred owls," offspring of interbreeding between the two, that may further confuse things.

Biologists didn't figure on all this when they mapped out reserves for the spotted owl and other species that would become the blueprint for public forest management. But they don't fault the barred owl for taking them by surprise.

"I wouldn't put it in terms of bad or good," Gutierrez says. "I would put it as, 'Is it a threat to the spotted owl?' And the answer is yes. I think this thing is happening more quickly than people expected it would."

In some areas, spotted owl numbers are stable or rising, so don't count them out yet. Spotted owls may hold their own in places such as steep, higher forests where they may have innate advantages over barred owls, Forsman said. And federal authorities might consider experimental control of barred owls in some way, depending on recommendations from the coming analysis, said Barry Mulder of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"If the barred owl is going to continue to be a threat, we are going to have to face some tough questions," he said.

While the spotted owl may have had more to say about the fate of the region's trees than most foresters, the barred owl may have the last word.

Related Articles:
2009-06-10 - Study: Shrinking gene pool among spotted owls contributing to their decline by Matthew Preusch - Oregon, U.S.A.
2008-11-25 - Environmental groups go to court over the spotted owl by Michael Milstein - Washington, DC, U.S.A.
2008-05-17 - Plan for saving spotted owl recommends maintaining older forests west of the Cascades by Michael Milstein - Oregon, U.S.A.
2008-01-04 - To barred owls, a tree's a tree by Michael Milstein - Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.A.
2007-07-29 - So much for saving the spotted owl by Michael Milstein - Oregon, U.S.A.
2007-06-15 - Critical habitat proposal draws different lines on Forest Service and BLM land by Adam Pearson - Oregon, U.S.A.
2007-05-06 - A spotted owl fix by Susan Palmer - Oregon, U.S.A.
2004-07-22 - Owls Face Spotted Future by Sharon Guynup & Nicolas Ruggia - Oregon, U.S.A.

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