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<\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n SALEM,\u00a0 Oregon;\u00a0 LOS ANGELES,\u00a0 California<\/strong>\u2013\u2013Blazing gunfire directed at barred owls in the Coast Range of Oregon and at mule deer on Catalina Island,\u00a0 26 miles west of Los Angeles,\u00a0 again demonstrates how successfully adaptive species can become allegedly maladaptive \u201cinvasive species,\u201d \u00a0\u00a0and be massacred,\u00a0 when their presence jeopardizes not endangered species so much as monied interests.<\/p>\n The Oregon Department of State Lands on October 1,\u00a0 2026 became the first agency in Oregon to begin killing spotted owls as \u201cpart of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan to kill more than 450,000 barred owls over 30 years in Oregon, Washington and California,\u201d\u00a0 reported Gosia Wozniacka a day later for the Oregonian<\/em>\/OregonLive.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The Oregon Department of State Lands,\u00a0 Wozniacka explained,\u00a0 \u201chas secured permits to kill up to 350 barred owls per year in the 83,000-acre Elliott State Research Forest in Coos and Douglas counties, northeast of Coos Bay.<\/p>\n \u201cThe culling will take place year-round for at least 15 years and cost as much as $1.2 million.\u201d<\/p>\n Killing barred owls will purportedly protect endangered spotted owls from habitat competition.<\/p>\n Reality,\u00a0 however,\u00a0 is that spotted owls feed almost exclusively on red tree voles,\u00a0 who live almost entirely in old growth forests,\u00a0 and that the major threat to spotted owls,\u00a0 both now and always,\u00a0 comes from old growth logging.<\/p>\n Killing barred owls will not expand the diminishing old growth habitat that spotted owls need to survive.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cIn addition to the Coast Range,\u201d\u00a0 Wozniacka wrote,\u00a0 \u201cbarred owls are slated to be killed in the Oregon Klamath region, \u00a0the Western Oregon Cascades, and the Eastern Oregon Cascades, \u00a0according to the federal plan.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Oregon Department of Forestry told the Oregonian<\/em>\/OregonLive it will also participate in the effort,\u201d\u00a0 Woznicka added, \u00a0\u201cbut does not expect to receive a federal permit until next year and has not yet identified where or when barred owl removals would occur, \u00a0or how many owls will be killed, agency spokesperson Tim Hoffman said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife, \u00a0on the other hand, \u00a0said it does not plan to participate in barred owl removal.\u201d<\/p>\n The Elliott State Research Forest became a designated barred owl killing field,\u00a0 Wozniacka recounted,\u00a0 after \u201cA recent survey detected just three individual spotted owls in the research forest and approximately 775 barred owl detections between March and July this past breeding season, though some of those might have been the same barred owl, said Amy Price, the Elliott State Research Forest\u2019s research biologist.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said the forest historically supported approximately 44 spotted owls at 22 breeding sites.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Three spotted owls and their offspring,\u00a0 breeding at the optimum rate of reproduction for the species,\u00a0 might take anywhere from 26 to 54 years to produce a population of at least 44\u2013\u2013if the habitat could still support that many in the first place.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has been in cahoots with the other federal land management agencies and the state fish and wildlife departments on this for more than a decade,\u201d\u00a0 Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle told ANIMALS 24-7<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe agency looked at spotted owl declines, \u00a0but never looked at the science of barred owl dispersal,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle charged.<\/p>\n \u201cVery localized shooting will do nothing to diminish barred owl numbers in any enduring way.\u00a0 Surviving barred owls,\u00a0 especially the juveniles kicked out of their parents\u2019 territory,\u00a0 will colonize the cleansed areas.<\/p>\n <\/a> Wayne Pacelle.<\/strong><\/em> \u201cThe utter hypocrisy of the plan is laid bare,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle continued, \u00a0\u201cby the actions of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to narrow the definition of \u2018harm\u2019 under the Endangered Species Act,\u00a0 a rule-making motivated mainly by an interest in cutting old-growth forests and killing and displacing spotted owls, \u00a0the proposed repeal of the Roadless Rule, \u00a0and the [Donald Trump administration] plan to increase public lands timber harvest by 60%.\u201d<\/p>\n (See Trump admin ESA rewrite brings spotted owls home to roost for enviros<\/a>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201c<\/em><\/strong>How can anyone in the Trump administration, \u00a0with a straight face, \u00a0claim that they are shooting barred owls to protect spotted owls,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle asked rhetorically,\u00a0 \u201cwith this massive, \u00a0multi-pronged assault on the endangered species?<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s more,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle charged, \u00a0\u201cthe barred owl plan was written to drive the killing of spotted owls: \u00a0kill a barred owl, \u00a0get a credit to cut thousand-year-old trees, \u00a0and kill or displace the spotted owls in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Animal Wellness Action billboard photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The barred owl killing in the Oregon Coast Range began about a month after Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy posted 18 billboards \u201cthroughout California and the Pacific Northwest,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle announced on September 6,\u00a0 2026,\u00a0 \u201ctaking our campaign to stop the federal government from killing some 450,000 North American barred owls to the streets.<\/p>\n \u201cThe barred owl killing plan is extraordinarily cruel, \u00a0reckless, \u00a0and unworkable,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle declared then.\u00a0 \u201cIt would also be an astonishing waste of taxpayer money, \u00a0with an estimated $1.35 billion in federal expenditures.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we believe there is something else going on here,\u201d\u00a0 Pacelle said.\u00a0 \u201cThis is a\u00a0timber company maneuver to divert attention from the industry\u2019s assault on old-growth forests \u2014 at precisely the time it is working with the Agriculture and Interior Departments to institute devastating, sweeping new national policies to open those forests to more cutting that will have the effect of displacing, \u00a0crushing, \u00a0and killing threatened northern spotted owls.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0 gloated Catalina Island Conservancy director of communications Pepe Barton in a September 28,\u00a0 2026 media release,\u00a0 Los Angeles Superior Court judge Curtis A. Kin \u201ctoday dismissed all claims brought by hunting groups and their partners challenging the Catalina Island Conservancy\u201d scheme to shoot the estimated 2,000 mule deer on Catalina island out of existence,\u00a0 in a multi-year extermination campaign.<\/p>\n The Kin ruling followed his September 3,\u00a0 2026 denial of an injunction against the mule deer culling.<\/p>\n Safari Club International and the California Rifle & Pistol Association,\u00a0 both of which sought to preserve 78 years of sport hunting on Catalina Island,\u00a0 joined the Coalition to Save Catalina Island Deer in bringing the lawsuit.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ruling dismisses the case in full,\u201d\u00a0 Barton wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe court dismissed the groups\u2019 claims under the California Environmental Quality Act, including arguments over the state\u2019s environmental notice and the California Department of Fish & Wildlife\u2019s authority to approve the project. \u00a0The court found that the California Department of Fish & Wildlife\u2019s acted within its authority in approving the restoration plan,\u201d\u00a0 Barton said.<\/p>\n (See Catalina Island Conservancy invokes drone ban, starts killing 2,000 deer<\/a>.)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Lora York,\u00a0 of Avalon,\u00a0 California,\u00a0 the only incorporated town on Catalina Island,\u00a0 argued on Facebook that,\u00a0 \u201cThe argument that the deer are not \u2018naturalized\u2019 after 100 years is a dangerous precedent.\u00a0 Under the California Environmental Quality Act,\u201d\u00a0 York contended,\u00a0 the \u2018baseline\u2019 is the environment as it exists today.\u00a0 Removing a century-old grazer without first mitigating the attractant,\u201d\u00a0 meaning Rusack Vineyards,\u00a0 \u201cis a backward approach that prioritizes a private commercial interest over public safety and fire prevention.\u201d<\/p>\n Rusack Vineyards,\u00a0 founded by aviation attorney Geoff Rusack and his wife Alison Wrigley Rusack in 1995,\u00a0 produces high-end wines grown from grapes raised on a 17-acre former horse ranch in Ballard Canyon,\u00a0 Catalina Island.<\/p>\n Alison Wrigley Rusack is a descendant of chewing gum magnate Philip Wrigley (1894-1977),\u00a0 whose family once owned most of the island,\u00a0 but donated much of it to the Catalina Island Conservancy,\u00a0 begun by Philip Wrigley in 1972.<\/p>\n (See Catalina Island Conservancy invokes drone ban, starts killing 2,000 deer<\/a>.)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cThe Conservancy and Wrigley family have consistently attempted to rid the island of deer,\u201d\u00a0 York recounted.\u00a0 \u201cThey have used several rationales.\u00a0 One states that deer eat all and only native or endemic plants because they are supposedly more tender to eat.\u00a0 They do not acknowledge the fire resistance benefits of the deer on the [other] 99% of the island,\u201d\u00a0 where the deer eat potentially flammable vegetation.<\/p>\n \u201cOn five separate occasions,\u201d\u00a0 York wrote,\u00a0 \u201cthe Catalina Island Conservancy has attempted to eradicate all the deer.\u201d<\/p>\n Applications to kill deer under depredation permits were denied by the California Department of Fish & Wildlife were denied in 2007 and 2012,\u00a0 York said.<\/p>\n Applications to kill deer under scientific collecting permits in 2016 and 2023 were respectively denied and superseded,\u00a0 York continued.<\/p>\n The 2023 application was superseded by the application for a \u201cRestoration Management Permit\u201d that is now in effect.<\/p>\n Both the barred owl cull promoted by the Donald Trump administration,\u00a0 now underway in Oregon, \u00a0and the deer cull underway on Catalina have political origins in theories of wildlife management predating On The Origin of Species<\/em>,\u00a0 published by Charles Darwin in 1859.<\/p>\n Darwin,\u00a0 elucidating the process of evolution as a continual succession of species,\u00a0 including through migration,\u00a0 colonization,\u00a0 and survival of the most successfully adaptive in ever-changing habitats,\u00a0 upset the previous notion,\u00a0 dating back as far as the Biblical Book of Genesis<\/em>,\u00a0 that God created all species and placed them specifically where they belong.<\/p>\n The \u201cinvasive species\u201d paradigm descends from the Book of Genesis.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Evolutionary reality,\u00a0 as recognized by Darwin,\u00a0 is that there is no such thing as an \u201cinvasive\u201d species;\u00a0 only adaptive species.<\/p>\n As Darwin summarized evolution,\u00a0 \u201cIt is not the strongest of the species that survives,\u00a0 nor the most intelligent,\u00a0 but the one most responsive to change.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> E.O. \u201cBugs\u201d Wilson.<\/strong><\/em> E.O. Wilson (1929-2021),\u00a0 who fancied himself a successor to Darwin as an evolutionary theorist but largely contradicted some of the most basic Darwinian insights,\u00a0 in The Theory of Island Biogeography <\/em>(1967)\u00a0amplified the notion of \u201cisland ecology.\u201d<\/p>\n (See E.O. Wilson, counter-evolutionary \u201cevolutionary biologist,\u201d dies at 92.<\/a>)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Wilson used the interactions of limited numbers of\u00a0species in isolated habitat as a model and\u00a0metaphor for how ecological change occurs in\u00a0general.<\/p>\n The Theory of Island Biogeography<\/em> furnished fuel to efforts already underway around the world to purge island habitats\u2013\u2013and \u201cislands\u201d of mainland habitat\u2013\u2013of nuisance wildlife in the name of conservation.<\/p>\n Massacring the successfully adaptive deer on Catalina Island follows purges of other introduced \u201cinvasive\u201d species on the other seven of the eight Channel Islands off the Southern California coast.<\/p>\n <\/a> Barred owl ( right).<\/strong><\/em> Meanwhile,\u00a0 The Theory of Island Biogeography<\/em> also helped to inspire the \u201ccritical habitat\u201d provisions of the 1973 U.S. Endangered Species Act.<\/p>\n The idea behind designating \u201ccritical habitat\u201d for endangered species was to protect the \u201cislands\u201d of habitat that the endangered animals and plants need to survive.<\/p>\n But what were conceptualized as \u201cislands\u201d soon became interpreted as large portions of the North American continent.<\/p>\n The northern spotted owl debacle,\u00a0 leading to the present massacre of barred owls,\u00a0 was the attempt of several major conservation groups, \u00a0beginning soon after the passage of the Endangered Species Act,\u00a0 to invoke the \u201ccritical habitat\u201d provisions of the act\u00a0on behalf of \u201cumbrella species,\u201d\u00a0 and,\u00a0 coincidentally in many cases,\u00a0 to protect scenic landscapes favored by donors.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The ecological rationale was to find endangered species whose \u201ccritical habitat\u201d might cover the range of many other potentially endangered species.<\/p>\n Thus many other animals and plants could be protected,\u00a0 along with much scenic landscape,\u00a0 without environmentalists having to fight costly and exhausting battle after battle on behalf of unknown,\u00a0 obscure,\u00a0 and\/or relatively unpopular but also endangered species.<\/p>\n Barred owls at the time were not even on anyone\u2019s radar screen as potential \u201cfriendly fire\u201d victims,\u00a0 having first been documented in Washington state in 1973 and in Oregon a year later.<\/p>\n Major environmental groups joined battle in the names of northern spotted owls,\u00a0 bald eagles,\u00a0 wolves,\u00a0 grizzly bears,\u00a0 and declining salmon runs, \u00a0especially,\u00a0 in hopes of putting almost the whole of the Pacific Northwest,\u00a0 the part of the U.S. hosting the most species then perceived to be endangered,\u00a0 under protected conservation status.<\/p>\n In hindsight,\u00a0 the \u201cumbrella species\u201d conservation strategy of the early 1970s was deeply na\u00efve and ultimately destructive of species conservation goals.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Instead of putting almost a quarter of the land mass of the Lower 48 states under protected status,\u00a0 the \u201cumbrella species\u201d strategy put many endangered species in the crosshairs,\u00a0 from wolves and grizzly bears to some of the most obscure varieties of brine shrimp.<\/p>\n Hunters,\u00a0 fishers,\u00a0 loggers,\u00a0 ranchers,\u00a0 miners,\u00a0 trappers,\u00a0 and others forming much of the political muscle that put the Trump administration in office increasingly saw their economic interests\u2013\u2013often their personal livelihoods\u2013\u2013in potential jeopardy,\u00a0 leading to the mantra of \u201cShoot,\u00a0 shovel,\u00a0 and shut up\u201d uttered in response to any discovery of endangered or threatened animals on private property.<\/p>\n Spotted owls,\u00a0 always known to be a scarce species with narrow habitat needs,\u00a0 became arguably the most controversial \u201cumbrella species\u201d of all.<\/p>\n There was never any likelihood of spotted owls \u201crecovering\u201d to abundance,\u00a0 because old growth forest by definition takes 150 years or longer to grow.\u00a0 The old growth forest that existed in 1973 was all that would ever exist within the lifespan of any living person or animal.<\/p>\nClaim that killing barred owls & Catalina mule deer is to protect endangered species is at best questionable<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n$1.2 million to kill 350 barred owls per year for 15 years<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nOregon Fish & Wildlife \u201cdoes not plan to participate\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n26 to 54 years for spotted owl recovery,\u00a0 even with enough old growth to support them<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n\u201cUtter hypocrisy\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n18 billboards<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nCatalina deer defenders lost appeal<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nRusack Vineyards<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nWinery is not an endangered species<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Ignoring Charles Darwin<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nE.O. Wilson & the theory of massacre<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Spotted owl (left).<\/strong><\/em>
(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n\u201cCritical habitat\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cUmbrella species\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cShoot, shovel, & shut up\u201d<\/h2>\n