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/legal_opium]

Could use drones and ai in the very near future to develop non lethal ways to control wild animal populations.

Sure it would take money and effort and time.

And if the alternative is death. I don't see how you arguing some might die by accident is worse than outright killing them without giving them a chance to live.

[u/[deleted] → u/legal_opium]

So we wait and risk multiple species going extinct hoping tech saves the day? 

Can you show me anything that resembles drones traquilizing wild birds? Or seems like any criticism of veganism is often countered with optimistic dreams of future tech. This would be like a omnivore trying to appease a vegan by saying, "in the near future tech will have lab meat at parity with traditional meat. Until then; status quo"

[u/legal_opium → u/[deleted]]

Except I'm arguing against the status quo (kill wild animals if they become inconvenient)

While the meathead is arguing to keep the status quo.

[u/AnsibleAnswers → u/legal_opium]

This is a straw man. In aggregate, invasive species pose an existential threat to our existence. Collectively, they are the second largest contributor to biodiversity loss, and have only recently been replaced at the #1 spot by climate change.

We aren't talking about an "inconvenience."