Biden plan to shoot 450,000 owls at $3,000 each under fire
A bipartisan group of U.S. House and Senate members is urging Congress to block a costly plan initiated under former President Joe Biden’s management to kill 450,000 barred owls at a cost of $3,000 each. The initiative, approved by the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2023, aims to reduce barred owl populations because they compete with the endangered northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest. Critics, including Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) and Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA),argue the plan is wasteful,expensive-projected to cost $1.35 billion over 30 years-and ineffective, as past efforts to protect northern spotted owls have failed to increase their numbers. they are introducing a resolution to use the Congressional Review Act to halt the shootings, and recent moves under the Trump administration suggest the plan may already be ending.The debate highlights ongoing tensions between wildlife conservation efforts and fiscal duty.
Biden plan to shoot 450,000 owls at $3,000 each under fire
A bipartisan parliament of House and Senate members today is calling on Congress to kill an expensive plan ordered by former President Joe Biden to shoot 450,000 barred owls bullying the endangered northern spotted owl in Northwest forests.
A resolution being introduced today, led by Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) in the House and Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) in the Senate, would trigger the Congressional Review Act and stop the Biden-era initiative.
In addition to saving the targeted barred owls and letting nature take its course, stopping the shootings could save $1.35 billion. Just one related contract to kill 1,500 birds cost $4.5 million, or $3,000 a bird.
The Fish and Wildlife Service approved the plan in 2023 because the barred owl aggressively competes with the northern spotted owl for nesting areas.
The protected owl, which is found from British Columbia to northern California, has been at the center of several controversial environmental fights. The government estimates that there are between 3,000 and 5,200 of them versus millions of barred owls.
Critics of the Biden plan have called it expensive, wasteful, and cruel. Several wildlife groups also oppose the killings.
“The Biden administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service agency plan to directly kill more than 450,000 barred owls, costing tax dollars over $1.3 billion over the next 30 years, is a waste of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars,” said Nehls.
“Under the leadership of President [Donald] Trump, we are protecting Americans’ tax dollars and restoring fiscal sanity in Washington, D.C. My CRA would prevent $1.35 billion from being wasted on the elimination of the barred owl in the Pacific Northwest,” he added.
New reports indicate that the Trump administration is already moving to terminate the plan. FWS has recently killed contracts to begin the shootings of the owls, commonly known as “hoot owls.”
Nehls has lined up a bipartisan group to win approval of his “Resolution of Disapproval” in the House. Cosigners include Reps. Scott Perry (R-PA), Josh Harder (D-CA), Andy Ogles (R-TN), Adam Gray (D-CA), Buddy Carter (R-GA), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Lance Gooden (R-TX), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Diana Harshbarger (R-TN), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA,) Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), and Shri Thanedar (D-MI).
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In an earlier letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Nehls and Kamlager-Dove said years of federal efforts to boost the population of northern spotted owls have failed and that it is time to move on.
“Since 1990, USFWS has listed the spotted owl as a threatened species in accordance with the Endangered Species Act of 1973. In the preceding decades, the federal government has gone to extreme lengths, including limiting logging on millions of acres of federal land in the Pacific Northwest, in an effort to save the embattled and declining species. To this date, there has been no demonstrable increase in spotted owl populations. This latest plan is an example of our federal government attempting to supersede nature and control environmental outcomes at great cost to American taxpayers,” said the letter.
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