Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Saving Owls With Guns and Chainsaws

Even after the Northern Spotted Owl was placed on the endangered species list in the 90s, greatly reducing the amount of logging from their habitat, the animal has continued to see a  fairly drastic decline in its numbers year after year. Now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has formally proposed a few plans they think will help the owl out...and many people don't agree.

One proposal includes limited logging, thinning forests that have been over-grown and have high risk for fires, and the other calls for shooting the Spotted Owls biggest and most intrusive enemy, the Barred Owl. And though the proposals are backed up by the FWS, others are afraid that not enough research was done on the ideas and that smaller scale experiments should be carried out first. Take a look...
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/us-proposes-to-save-spotted-owl.html

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