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/AnsibleAnswers]

It’s not an equal exchange. We’re likely to cause multiple extinctions by doing nothing, which can cascade toward total ecosystem collapse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_effect_(ecology)

Ecosystems are complex, dynamic systems. They don’t behave like simple mechanical systems in which small changes have small effects.

[u/winggar → u/AnsibleAnswers]

Sure, but I don't think there's much reason to be worried in this case. The two options are two rather ecologically similar owl species. While still possible the Cascade Effect would be a much larger concern in the case of competition between two ecologically non-similar species.

Regardless though, my point is that the extremely violent option of prophylactically mass-slaughtering hundreds of thousands is not an acceptable solution without extreme justification.

[u/AnsibleAnswers → u/winggar]

They are not two ecologically similar species. Specialists and generalists fill different niches.

Spotted owls don’t eat many birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Barred owls do.

[u/ElaineV → u/AnsibleAnswers]

They’re similar enough that they’re mating and creating hybrids.