The post title is intentionally hyperbolic but Gawker does have the information on the plan to help the Spotted Owl – which is basically killing lots of Barred Owls. What do people think of killing a population of one species to save another?
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
Man changed the landscape and cowbirds moved in, threatening Kirtland’s Warblers.
Man changed the landscape and Barred Owls moved in, threatening Spotted Owls.
Allowing logging to “reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire” – yeah, I’ll bet that’s what was at the heart of that decision. Humans meddle with the ecosystem and then are stunned when the related species start disappearing. Sometimes our species is so short-sighted and stupid, I can hardly believe it…
Hyperbole is the worst thing ever.
As for killing off one species to save another, it may make certain tree-hugging types squeamish but it is sometime necessary. Conservation isn’t all feel good stuff, sometimes hard choices have to be made. I don’t know the particulars of this case though.
Hidden in the article is that the plan is to capture and relocate birds as well as just off them. The tone of the article is inflammatory to me, so it appears that they are down playing the relocation, and up playing the shooting.
But how is this possible? I heard Obama wants to take away all our guns! How will we protect ourselves from owls then?
Perhaps he’s going to kill them by mandating that they take contraceptives.
@Arie: I am quite sure he will invite his best pals, the Taliban, to the US to do the defending for you! 😉 🙂
Well….man started putting cams up on every hawk and eagles nest…interfere when a bird is hurt or appears unwell instead of letting nature….(God) they fix it and then there’s not enough food because nobody is putting up cams for the blue Jay’s or the squirrels and now look we’ve got unbalance…the American crows are seriously threatening the song bird population here I honestly can assure you I’ve seen %90 of the birds get killed by American crows…not eaten….just killed ripped apart and left for a long awful death. ?