Northern Spotted Owl vs. Barred Owl: The Ethical Conundrum of Compassionate Conservation

By Steve Lemeshko

Left: Northern spotted owl. Right: Barred owl. Credit: Bureau of Land Management Oregon and Washington, CC BY 2.0; Jim Oskam, CC BY-NC 2.0.

The northern spotted owl, an iconic species of the Pacific Northwest, has been struggling for decades. These owls depend on old-growth forests, fragmented and degraded by decades of logging. In 1990, the species was listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), protecting remaining old-growth forests and supporting other species within these ecosystems. It would have been a success story, but the population of now-protected owls has never bounced back.

Today’s forests differ significantly from those of a century ago. Even with ESA protections, much of the habitat remains degraded, with recovery potentially requiring decades or even centuries. Additionally, global climate change is altering the ecological balance, impacting everything from the canopy to prey availability, which in turn affects survival and reproduction rates. However, ecologists now point to a more immediate threat: the barred owl. Barred owls, native to the Eastern U.S., have historically been separated by the Great Plains. European colonizers, however, banned the Indigenous fire management practices, disrupting fire regimes and changing the landscape. The slow violence of fire suppression created a “tree bridge,” allowing barred owls to migrate westward through Canada. In the late 60s, they were first spotted in Washington, and by the mid-70s, they were all the way down in California. The barred owl's invasion might not have posed a significant threat if the two species were not so similar: they occupy the same ecological niche, leading to competition for resources, a battle the northern spotted owl is losing.

In response, some conservationists have suggested “managing” barred owl populations to protect the northern spotted owl. Past removal experiments had limited success at best: although the spotted owls were surviving, the population still declined. Fast-forward to August 2024, and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) published its Final Barred Owl Management Strategy. This controversial plan aims to "reduce" barred owl populations by over 450,000 individuals across Washington, Oregon, and California over 30 years, starting in spring 2025 with an initial kill of 2,450 individuals, followed by increasingly larger culls.

Such numbers raise ethical concerns. To many, barred owls are not merely an invasive species but are majestic creatures deserving of the right to live, especially given their similar appearance to spotted owls. Here, the concept of compassionate conservation challenges traditional views in conservation biology, which have traditionally been focused on species rather than individuals. Compassionate conservation tries to bridge the gaps between two seemingly conflicting disciplines—compassion and conservation—and takes into account individual lives to promote empathy toward all species.

Yet, the proposed cull also highlights the concept of psychic numbing—the phenomenon where rising statistics dull our emotional response. Even though this concept is usually applied to human mass tragedies, research on pandas by Ezra Markowitz et al. (2023) in “Compassion fade and the challenge of environmental conservation” indicates that this effect extends to non-human species. What we might observe with barred owls is the loss of thousands of anonymous lives becoming invisible to the greater public.

The culling plan confronts us with the tension between protecting an endangered species and recognizing the individual lives affected. This ethical dilemma has been debated for a long time now. Warren Cornwall captured this tension in his 2014 essay, "There Will Be Blood." We invite you to read the full essay, but here’s an excerpt:

It would be the largest known mass killing of raptors. For bird lovers or for anyone with a soft spot for wild animals, this is a problem from hell. Nobody is happy with the options. […]

The shootings have prompted an unusual amount of soul-searching. For the first time ever, the Fish and Wildlife Service—an agency with plenty of blood on its hands—convened people to grapple with the ethics of killing one animal for the sake of another. How should humans get involved in a fight between species? Step into the boots of people on the front lines of the owl wars. Would you open fire?

A decade later, Avram HillerJay Odenbaugh, and Yasha Rohwer, in a NYT op-ed, wrote the following:

Current policy offers us a choice between a forest out of time, engineered to look more like the forests of old only by a hail of bullets, or nothing at all.

The issue of spotted owls is indeed one from hell, but it’s also about acknowledging the consequences of human interference. The slow violence of the Indigenous practices of fire suppression allowed barred owls to extend their reach into the West, and in these degraded forests, compounded by human-induced climate change, spotted owls struggle to compete. Yet, why must barred owls pay for our mistakes? Even under optimistic assumptions—and without considering ethical concerns—culling barred owls is a temporary techno-fix at best, unlikely to provide a sustainable long-term solution. Additionally, the two species are genetically close and can even produce hybrid offspring, known as “sparred owls,” which are also included in the management strategy. Carla Wise commented on this in a 2010 High Country News article:

During my scientific training, I was taught the orthodox view that being a good scientist requires distancing yourself from the organism you are studying. Compassion, one of our most basic gifts, is a cause for suspicion. Empathy is believed to get in the way of “impartial science.” […] You can’t shoot one bird in order to save another; you can’t love one and hate her hybrid baby. It just doesn’t work that way.

This ethical conflict leaves us with more questions than answers, with implications not only for wildlife but for the ways we confront human-driven ecological crises. Should we continue to cull barred owls, buying time for northern spotted owls, or allow nature to take its course, bearing responsibility for the long-term effects of our interference? Carla Wise ends her article with a thought-provoking quote that feels fitting here as well:

[A]mong other things, he [Tim] said: “As a culture, we’ve spent millennia playing god. Perhaps it is time to show some humility, lock up the shotguns and just watch what unfolds as the spotted owls and barred owls do their dance.” Yes, perhaps it is.

The full citation of the journal article is:

Markowitz, Ezra M. et al. “Compassion Fade and the Challenge of Environmental Conservation.” Judgment and Decision Making 8.4 (2013): 397–406, doi: 10.1017/S193029750000526X.

For further reading on slow violence and environmental humanities, see the following articles:

How do we know what animals are really feeling? / May 10, 2024

Communicating Trans-Species Empathy: An Interview with Amy Donovan / March 18, 2022

Empathy for Underserved, Under-represented, Voiceless Communities / July 30, 2020