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Owl Killings Spur Moral Questions About Human Intervention

Associated Press

   CORVALLIS, OREGON - As he stood amid the thick old-growth forests in
   the coastal range of Oregon, Dave Wiens was nervous. Before he trained
   to shoot his first barred owl, he had never fired a gun.

   He eyed the big female owl, her feathers streaked brown and white,
   perched on a branch at just the right distance. Then he squeezed the
   trigger and the owl fell to the forest floor, adding to a running tally
   of more than 2,400 barred owls killed so far in a controversial
   experiment by the U.S. government to test whether the northern spotted
   owl's rapid decline in the Pacific Northwest can be stopped by killing
   its aggressive East Coast cousin.

   Wiens grew up fascinated by birds, and his graduate research in owl
   interactions helped lay the groundwork for this tense moment.

   "It's a little distasteful, I think, to go out killing owls to save
   another owl species," said Wiens, a biologist who still views each
   shooting as "gut-wrenching" as the first. "Nonetheless, I also feel
   like from a conservation standpoint, our back was up against the wall.
   We knew that barred owls were outcompeting spotted owls and their
   populations were going haywire."

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