Days ago, the Biden Administration’s wildlife agency approved a monstrous plan to shoot 450,000 barred owls in Pacific Northwest, in a Hail Mary attempt to reduce social competition between barred owls and their cousins — threatened spotted owls.

The shooting will be conducted in forest habitats spanning 24 million acres, including six national parks, 17 national forests, and thousands of pockets of private lands. It will, as planned, be the largest massacre of birds of prey ever attempted by any government.

It is also an exercise in futility, since there’s no way it can succeed. What’s to stop tens of thousands of surviving barred owls from simply flying in and reoccupying sites that were recently purged of their kind?

Barred owls are native to North America and have expanded their range in response to other human impacts on the environment, including climate change. This is a normal survival strategy for species, and not an example of trespass.

Wild animals compete against one another. They breed with one another. They angle for prey and space. It happens within families, it happens within species, it happens between species. That competition animates ecological systems. Is it realistic to think the federal government can micromanage these countless interactions?

The whole plan is myopic, looking too narrowly at a single-species response and sidestepping the arduous and more complex task of disentangling the myriad human actions that have collectively put spotted owls in peril.

Wayne Pacelle

Animal Wellness Action

Bethesda, Md.