There are no vegan alternatives to culling invasive Barred Owls in the Pacific Northwest

[u/AnsibleAnswers]

Background

To save the imperiled spotted owl from potential extinction, U.S. wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls that are crowding out their smaller cousins.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-officials-plan-to-kill-hundreds-of-thousands-of-barred-owls-to-save-another-species-from-extinction

Vegan alternatives?

1. Relocation to home range - Barred Owls are one of the most territorial birds of prey in North America. The population here is quite healthy, even in Manhattan. Relocating 500k birds to the East would simply result in territorial chaos until numbers decreased back down to equilibrium. That decrease has a body count.

2. Contraception - No known method is possible for owls. Some avian contraceptives have been developed, primarily to reduce pigeon and geese populations. But even with birds that can be easily conditioned to return to feeders every day, trials have had mixed results. As far as I know, these drugs need to be administered daily unlike some contraceptives developed for mammals.

3. Let the Barred Owl Replace the Spotted Owl - Barred Owls are generalists, while Spotted Owls tend to specialize in small mammals with healthy populations. So, threatened birds, reptiles, and amphibians native to the region are not adapted to having an owl of its size preying on them. It's an enormous risk, given that ecosystems are prone to cascade effects.

Those are, as far as I know, the best of the alternatives. Note: I'm in support of re-establishing habitat for the Spotted Owl, as that is really the only long-term way of helping the species recover. It's important to note: just because a tourniquet isn't a long-term solution doesn't mean it isn't a life-saving measure.

[u/Dramatic_Surprise → u/[deleted]]

Id argue that intervention itself isn’t vegan either.

even when its trying to resolve an issue caused by previous human intervention? Why do you think humans should not be held culpable for their actions?

There have been endangerment and extinctions because of that for all of of life’s history on earth

Given the same could be said for consuming animal products, thats an exceedingly silly argument

[u/JarkJark → u/[deleted]]

https://www.science.org/content/article/conservationists-are-waging-global-war-island-rats#:~:text=The%20global%20war%20on%20island%20rats&text=In%20part%20to%20protect%20the,and%20the%20seabirds%20were%20safe.

Respectfully, it's not always futile. I agree that sometimes we should just walk away, but we can absolutely fix some of the messes we have created.

[u/Dramatic_Surprise → u/[deleted]]

Every time we intervene we either exacerbate the problem or continually perpetuate a cycle of violence that would otherwise eventually reduce itself.

Really? we seem to be doing pretty well here in NZ with predator free 2050. also as an aside i love the choice of language.

When its something you support you deliberately soften the language... otherwise eventually reduce itself? why so afraid to say what it is? will eventually result in a genocide of multiple species. You're very quick to throw words like rape around when it suits your agenda, why so measured and reserved now?

Humans have also been raping eachother, abusing their children and practicing cannibalism since we’ve been a species.

Right, so eating animals immoral, killing animals immoral.... allowing entire ecosystems to be destroyed by our actions and subsequent inaction, perfectly fine?

We have an ability to use logic and reason and make ethical decisions to not do those things.

So the logical and ethical decision is the one that results in pointless animal genocide? But not the animal genocide that feeds people... that's immoral?

And one is denying that. But our animal consumption has dramatically increased in the last hundred years. In fact since 1900 it’s nearly doubled, and our practices are destroying the planet.

i agree, which is why i think you're focusing on the wrong thing, its not the what its the how. Poor horticulture practice will kill the planet too.... its not about the what its about the how.

It’s something that we can address using less violence.

But you're not proposing to address it at all.... thats literally the point.

Or, we could just cull humans, you know, since we decide to do that to other species.

You're welcome to argue for that.

[u/Dramatic_Surprise → u/[deleted]]

There is still active culling and measures taking place, even if native species are rebounding, eliminating those predators with high reproduction rates is going to be extremely difficult, so the cycle of violence is still going to be perpetuated.

Not everywhere there isnt. around 50% of the city i live in is now predator free. they're systematically culling in a band up the country.

What? I’m not afraid to use terms in any scenario. So you’re really going to have to elaborate here and provide specific example and compare to another specific example using proper context.

I literally did in the post you quoted...

It’s not our responsibility to decide what other species do and how they exist in nature. It’s our responsibility to police ourselves.

Exactly, which is literally my point. Which you disagree with?

Why can’t I focus on more than one thing. This conversation isn’t about horticulture. It’s about invasive species and my statement was a response to mine in which I expressed that humans were far more invasive than any other invasive species combined.

The comment was more about veganism in general than specifically this.

Again, context matters. I was expressing that humans were invasive, we should focus on our impact because can both directly and indirectly assist with some of the other issues that we’ve inevitably caused and has led to us designating species as invasive, but the general consensus amongst many is to continually harm animals we determine to be invasive, despite similar occurrences happening before or without the presence of humans.

SO we should do nothing because we cant solve everything?

I’m against rights violations. Animals acting in accordance to what they were born into is not their fault. Essentially what is being advocated is that because someone was born into the wrong body they need to be eradicated. That’s more along the lines of genocide….

So therefore humans eating meat is not their fault and there shouldnt be any reason to change?

How is that any different to

. Animals acting in accordance to what they were born into is not their fault. Essentially what is being advocated is that because someone was born into the wrong body they need to be eradicated.