Science Friday - A Startling Plan To Save Spotted Owls—From Barred Owls

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

The spotted owl has been a conservation flashpoint for more than 30 years. While habitat loss has been their historic foe, their most recent threat comes from within the owl family tree: the barred owl. Barred owls have expanded into the Pacific Northwest and are now outcompeting spotted owls for food and habitat. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has put forth a strategy that some experts say is the only way to save the spotted owl, and it could involve killing hundreds of thousands of barred owls.Ecologist and spotted owl expert Rocky Gutierrez joins Host Flora Lichtman to break down the plan, and explain how we got to this point.Guest: Dr. R.J. “Rocky” Gutierrez is an owl ecologist and professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota. He’s now based in Humboldt County, California.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Before we get going, what are you doing this Friday night? Because if you are in New York, I have the perfect evening all lined up. There will be wine. There will be beer. There will be cheese. There will be astrophysics. And most importantly, there will be Iraflato. Honestly, what more could you want? I don't want any of you to suffer FOMO. So we are giving podcast listeners a special deal. Use the code podcast for $50 tickets. Get all the details at science friday.com slash big mysteries. Hey, I'm Flor Lichtenen, and you're listening to Science Friday. On the show today, a new kind of shocking proposal to save spotted owls. These are the cute, charismatic birds that live in old-growth forests in the West and are threatened by habitat loss and logging. People have been arguing about these birds for over 30 years. They're a conservation poster child. So the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed a new strategy to save them. And it's kind of startling.

The bard owl management strategy proposes killing 450,000 barred owls over the next 30 years. Across 24 million acres, which includes 14 million acres. Yes, you heard that right, saving spotted owls by killing as many as 450,000 barred owls. The proposed strategy is, as you would guess, controversial and has created some strange nest fellows. Loggers and many conservationists are in favor, while some lawmakers and animal welfare groups are opposed. It's been challenged in court, and its fate is uncertain, but people are talking about it. So we wanted to know what one of the world's top spotted owl experts thinks of this approach. So we called up applied ecologist Rocky Gutierrez, Professor Emeritus at University of Minnesota.

He's been studying spotted owls for decades. Hey, Rocky, welcome to Science Friday. Thank you for having me, Flora. This is your area of expertise. I mean, you've studied spotted owls for decades. Do you think this plan is a good idea? It is the only option that we have if we want to ensure the persistence of the spotted owl. But it's far more than the spotted owl.

What people don't realize is that the entire ecosystem function and the number of species that this barred owl is affecting is enormous. There was just a paper that was published last week that showed 29 species that are threatened, endangered or species of conservation concern, are being impacted by the bard owl. Such as, give me some examples. Examples are red-legged frogs, endangered salamanders, all the small owls, that coexist with the spotted owl, like the flammulated owl, screech owls, pygmy owls, and so forth. What is it about the bard owl? Why are they such a problem?

Well, the bard owl is not native to Western North America. It invaded from the East Coast, we think, as a result of changes that humans made to the Midwestern United States that allowed them to, move across the country and invade the forest of the Pacific Northwest. And since then, as many invaders do, once they get into an area in which there's no known competition, the prey have not adapted to them. And so they flourish. I mean, how urgent is this? If we don't do something, will spotted owls go extinct?

And what's the timeline that we have for them? Well, we don't know the exact timeline, but it is almost assured that we will, in fact, lose a spotted owl if we do not control a barred owl. I'm curious for your thoughts on this. I think this is, it's emotional for people. Like, it's really hard to imagine killing hundreds of thousands of owls, that that being sort of the best idea we have. You are wearing an owl sweater right now. You've dedicated your life to owls. Do you have complicated? feelings about this? Of course I do. I think every single biologist that's involved with this is not happy that this is the only viable alternative, but realistically it is the only viable alternative. People love owls, at least in this country they do, and they elicit a strong emotive response from people. Therefore, there's a strong emotional reaction, as you said, to this choice, to kill these owls. However, even in your introduction, one of the premises that's misleading

that is commonly used by opponents of this act is that the 450,000 barred owls are going to be killed. And that's just not true. What the Fish and Wildlife Service did in creating a strategy is to create a series of alternatives, the worst case of which would be 450,000 owls. However, that will never be achieved because their preferred strategy will result in something like 5,000 hours a year over 30 years, which is about 150,000 hours. So it's really quite different when you actually root down into their plan. and determine what actually that they wish to happen and in what is potentially possible. The $450,000 is the cap, but they actually are aiming for fewer, many fewer. Yes, but the important point is that bard ales will persist under any alternative of this strategy.

So they're not trying to cause the bard owl to go extinct or disappear from the Pacific Northwest because that's probably impossible at this point in time. Because there are just so many. Yes, because there's so many. Except, however, they can't keep them out of certain areas, for example, out of Marin County where there's isolated habitat of spotted owls. And it'll be easy to keep them out of Marin County. And you notice I use the word easy because scientists have proven that it is exceptionally easy when the density of barred owls is low to keep them under control and having minimal impact on spotted owls. I mean, do we have a sense of what would be impactful for spotted owls? Like, you know, we're talking about these huge numbers, but if you got rid of barred owls in a few key places or you were, you know, calling populations by many fewer, would that have an impact on the owls, on the spotted owls?

Well, of course, any removal of the barred owls is going to have some impact. The problem that people have recognized, scientists have recognized, is that the density in certain areas is so high that they invade quickly from the surrounding area. This is why they want to have specially designated areas where all that barred owls are removed, so that the spotted owls in certain areas are protected from colonization by locally surrounding barred owls. And when you do that, you can in fact, well, we think you can maintain these not only spotted owl populations, but other populations of small owls and other species that are impacted. That brings up another question, which is, is this bard owl plan the best way to save spotted owls or is it just the way that we can imagine doing it? because actually, you know, conserving forests is not going to happen.

Yeah, well, one of the things about this plan is that there are various alternatives considered, and they are based on a huge amount of information that have been gathered over four decades on the spotter now. So we know that there virtually is no viable alternative. Animal welfare groups and others will say, well, you just need to protect the habitat, stop logging. But that's not the answer. It doesn't make any difference how much habitat you protect. It will not prevent the bard owl from invading those habitats because they use all the habitats as spotted owls use and they use other habitats that spotted ows don't use.

So there is really no alternative. And this is not a conclusion that was derived from haphazard information or short-term information. We probably have more information on the requirements of spotted owls than virtually any other endangered species in the world. So this is a plan that's based on really the only viable alternative that we can perceive as, as scientists. Wow. I mean, you know, we know that culling wild animals isn't new. We do this with deer.

We do this with coyotes. We also know that there can be, you know, unintended consequences of these kind of management plans. How do you think about that piece of it, sort of like ecosystem meddling piece? Yeah, that's sort of interesting. And, of course, this is one of the tax of animal welfare groups is that they accuse scientists or the Fish and Wildlife Service, for that matter, of playing God. But humans have been manipulating their environment since the dawn of humanity,

or at least they've been trying to. And this is no different. In the case of the Bardal and other species in modern society, we control all kinds of things. We control cormorants because they impact fisheries and fishing. We control brown-headed cowbirds because they impact endangered Curtin's warblers, and the list goes on and on and on. So this is nothing new.

It's just that the idea of an owl is so close to the interests of people, including all of us who study owls, that it's really strikes to a strong emotional response from us. Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of a different beast because people love owls. Right. We have to take a break, but don't go away because we are not going to let Rocky fly out of this conversation

without telling us some cool spotted owl facts, and maybe we'll even get him to do his best spotted owl impression. Stay with us. I can't let you go. you cannot leave Science Friday without telling us some amazing owl facts because they are so charismatic and interesting. Just tell me a little bit about the spotted owl and, you know, why you love them. Well, all owls are interesting and they have been of interest to humans for 40,000 years since they first started drawing pictures of critters on cave walls. And I think they're of interest to people and to me in general because they do something that we cannot do.

And that is they can see in very limited light conditions at night. They have a mysterious lifestyle because of their mostly nocturnal behavior. Some are diurnal, but most are nocturnal. And so they conjure up these really, emotive conditions in our soul that makes, at least me, want to study them, to see them, even to go out sometimes at night just listening for them, hooting in the distance, not to disturb them, but just to listen to them. Because we know that something is out there in the dark doing something that we can't do.

And I think that's one of the real fun things about owls, is why I think they attract so many people and have such interest in them because they can do this that we can't do. They have a superpower. Or at least a power we don't have. Last one, you're wearing an owl sweater today. Yes.

I know your wife knits you owl sweaters. Do you have a spotted owl sweater? I do have a spotted owl sweater. It was the very first one she made for me. many years ago, and it's still my favorite. But today I'm wearing a long-whiskered owlet sweater, which is a diminutive, a little tiny owl that lives in the high Andes of Peru in a cloud forest and a tiny elfin cloud forest.

And they sound like insects when they call strange little things. Before we let you go, will you do it? a spotted owl call for us? Sure. Yeah, so a spotted owl call is usually a series of four-note hoots. Go, who-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho. So it's one, one-two, one. And that's sort of the male. And the females have a higher pitch voice, and they kind of sound like this.

But they make all kinds of other sounds. And when they get really agitated, they go, Oh, oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. That's Dr. Rocky Gutierrez impersonating a spotted owl. He's an owl ecologist and professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota. Rocky, thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

And you can see a picture of Rocky's owl sweaters at Science Friday, Dr. slash spotted owl. Hey, one last thing before we wrap up. If you are in the middle of holiday shopping for the young science lovers in your life, we have a guide for this year's best science books for kids on our website, science friday.com slash books. We've got suggestions about butterflies and black holes and dinosaurs, hurricanes, and more. Check it out at science friday.com slash books.

Thank you so much for listening. This segment was produced by Kathleen. Davis and we'll see you tomorrow.