A Major Step Toward Stopping the Slaughter of Barred Owls

Barred owls got another bit of good news right before the start of the U.S. Senate’s August recess when Senators John Kennedy (R-La.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a Senate Joint Resolution (S.J.R. 69) to block the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s plan to kill hundreds of thousands of these owls in the Pacific Northwest. A Senate Joint Resolution, introduced under the Congressional Review Act, is a legislative tool used by Congress to nullify a specific agency rule or regulation. In this case, the Joint Resolution, if passed, would overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Barred Owl Management Strategy, which approved the mass slaughter of nearly half a million native American owls.

The controversial plan has drawn bipartisan criticism over its extraordinary cost, and wildlife advocates have condemned it as both cruel and unlikely to provide lasting protection for the threatened northern spotted owl, the species the agency is trying to protect.

Eric Forsman, a forest owl expert and longtime U.S. Forest Service researcher known for his role in advancing protections for spotted owls, has also criticized the plan. He cautioned, “Control across a large region would be incredibly expensive, and you’d have to keep doing it forever. In the long run, we’re just going to have to let the two species work it out.”

Species Unite has opposed the cull since it was first proposed, and over 7,000 members of this community have signed our petition demanding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cancel the plan. Now, thankfully, the possibility that hundreds of thousands of owls will be shot and killed over the next several decades is becoming more remote. Momentum is building—not only in Congress, but also within the administration, which recently rescinded three federal “bridge” grants that would have helped fund the killing.

Senate Joint Resolution 69 is the Senate companion to House Joint Resolution 111 (H.J.R. 111), which was introduced earlier this year. For these resolutions to officially block the plan, they must pass both chambers of Congress and be signed into law by the President.

Although the plan is not yet officially canceled, this is a major step forward in the effort to stop this senseless and unnecessary slaughter before it begins.