www.newsweek.com 
WOW ! Waiting to see the animal lovers / tree huggers outcries on this one!! Having retired from construction & environmental work , I ve had my share of holdups from various critter /bird / amphibians & plant habitat .Thank you, Septicdeath, for this post. This kind of thing I nerd-out on. For more information, see here:
Note the actual Management Plan, and that it says Public Comments can be submitted until 16 January here:Barred Owl Management | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
LATEST NEWS: The Service announced theirwww.fws.gov
— Internet: https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments on Docket No. FWS-R1-ES-2022-0074
I'm considering submitting something along the lines of:
---draft---
Comment on Draft Barred Owl Management Strategy
The guidelines mention "firearms" (p. 110-113), and I respectfully suggest that you also consider the use of high-powered, small caliber airguns or air-rifles for this task, for the following reasons:
The shooting distance is recommended to be 30 yards or less; this is an ideal distance for airgun hunting.
At this distance, airguns are quite accurate, easily more accurate per cost of the gun than bullet firearms, and having an effective accuracy comparable with the recommended shotguns.
At this distance, high powered, small caliber airguns have sufficient power (12+ foot pounds) to humanely dispatch a bird the size of a barred owl (0.5 to 1kg). This is similar in size to an American crow or squirrel, which are routinely taken with airguns at that power level. Airgunners typically train for headshots on such quarry, and train shooting up into trees.
Airguns are typically shot using a scope, and often with night or thermal imaging capability, as such airguns see use in other nighttime pest control (rats, rabbits).
Unleaded or non-lead projectiles (pellets) that you require are readily available, and are accurate at this distance.
Airguns are very quiet, and will not disturb nearby wildlife or nesting owls.
Airguns are relatively safe for downrange wildlife, as the diabolo shaped pellets are inherently high drag projectiles and do not carry damaging energy very far. A .177 diabolo projectile is effectively out of energy by 100 yards, a .22 by 150 yards and a .25 by 200 yards, well within the guidelines for avoiding damage to neighboring spotted owls.
Sincerely,
---end draft---
That all said, the biologist in me thinks it is a complete waste of time to shoot the barred owls. They'll displace the spotted owls anyway and the rest of the ecosystem probably won't notice, what with all the climate change and human incursions. Drop in the bucket. But if they want to shoot 'em up, why not let the airgunners contribute their skills?
well I commend your effort to put in for airgunner shooting.. I agree with you that it's probably not going to make a difference whether they are shot or not.. especially since I used to live near Yosemite and they basically shut down logging over the spotted owl and the local town saw mill went and then pretty much all the working class went elsewhere.. no mill job, no loggers, a whole lot less trucking and that in turn made a lot of other businesses close.. did all of that help the spotted owl? not that I could tell.. I never saw a owl in the woods.. and if all the people I knew the only ones that had seen a single spotted owl were the USFS guys that I worked with, because when they shut down logging there was much protests and apparently someone knew where to find a spotted owl and it was left on the ranger station doorstep..Thank you, Septicdeath, for this post. This kind of thing I nerd-out on. For more information, see here:
Note the actual Management Plan, and that it says Public Comments can be submitted until 16 January here:Barred Owl Management | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
LATEST NEWS: The Service announced their
— Internet: https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments on Docket No. FWS-R1-ES-2022-0074
I'm considering submitting something along the lines of:
---draft---
Comment on Draft Barred Owl Management Strategy
The guidelines specify "firearms" and particularly shotguns (p. 110-113), and I respectfully suggest that you also consider the use of high-powered, small caliber airguns or air-rifles for this task, for the following reasons:
The shooting distance is recommended to be 30 yards or less; this is an ideal distance for airgun hunting.
At this distance, airguns are quite accurate, easily more accurate per cost of the gun than bullet firearms, and having an effective accuracy comparable with the recommended shotguns.
At this distance, high powered, small caliber airguns have sufficient power (~12 to 40 foot pounds) to humanely dispatch a bird the size of a barred owl (0.5 to 1kg). This is similar in size to an American crow or squirrel, which are routinely taken with airguns at that power level. Airgunners typically train for headshots on such quarry, and often train shooting up into trees.
Airguns are typically shot using a scope, and often with night imaging capability, as such airguns see use in other nighttime pest control (rats, rabbits).
Unleaded or non-lead projectiles (pellets) that you require are readily available, and are accurate at this distance.
Airguns are very quiet, and will not disturb nearby wildlife or nesting owls.
Airguns are relatively safe for downrange wildlife, as the diabolo shaped pellets are inherently high drag projectiles and do not carry damaging energy very far. A .177 diabolo projectile is effectively out of energy by 100 yards, a .22 by 150 yards and a .25 by 200 yards, well within the guidelines for avoiding damage to neighboring spotted owls. The single airgun projectile is also more surgical with less potental collateral damage than a myriad of birdshot from a shotgun, which has a cone of fire.
For all these reasons airguns would make a good choice of gun for this management strategy.
Sincerely,
---end draft---
That all said, the biologist in me thinks it is a complete waste of time to shoot the barred owls. They'll displace the spotted owls anyway and the rest of the ecosystem probably won't notice, what with all the climate change and human incursions. Drop in the bucket. But if they want to shoot 'em up, why not let the airgunners contribute their skills?
sad, that if they were in short supply that one was killed just for protest.. I had several native American friends.. they preferred to be called Indians.. but I don't ever remember them being involved with anything about the owls.. and I was good friends with a medicine man and a chief.. me too.. there's a fair amount of birds I really admire.. owls, crows, ravens, hawks and eagles.. especially our wonderful looking bald eagle..
I don't know my birds well and I spent half of the day looking up hawk to figure out what kind he was.. I totally agree, I find several of the large birds awesome.. like the bald eagle and ravens and crows.. you have to understand that corn
is my favorite food and I couldn't bring myself to shoot one when I had dozens pulling up my crop of corn that had sprouted just to eat the seeds.. but I finally got them chased off and replanted. also owls I think I have only seen a couple in my life.. you are totally correct
.. I saw it destroyed my hometown and the business.. kind of went dead for 15 years and it picked back up because it was a less expensive place to live since all the jobs went everywhere.. it was even in the USFS law enforcement.. I was in the excavation business and worked a lot for the USFS in station and campground maintenance and I bought a timber hazard sale on my road.. hired a friend, ex logger to do the falling and got stopped by the law enforcement and threatened with arrest if I ran equipment in the creek area half a mile away in the wrong direction.. I told him not a chance id be within a 1/4 mile of the creek, and it was all over a frog that hadn't been seen in the area for over 100 years.. just chapped my hide because he had to not only look at the permit and tree markings but had to have my id.. as if I stole the truck and equipment that had my name on it and he saw me usually weekly at the ranger station, with the same equipment and I was allowed in the restricted to public area where the maintenance division was.. I ended up telling his boss, who I worked for just because of so much harassment and he got reprimanded.. it was a small town and everyone knew me, especially the entire USFS workers.. was a good community and well it was back when a handshake was as good as money in the bank or a signed contract.. did many a job on a handshake.. good old days..Here is the snail mail address for written letters:well I commend your effort to put in for airgunner shooting.. I agree with you that it's probably not going to make a difference whether they are shot or not.. especially since I used to live near Yosemite and they basically shut down logging over the spotted owl and the local town saw mill went and then pretty much all the working class went elsewhere.. no mill job, no loggers, a whole lot less trucking and that in turn made a lot of other businesses close.. did all of that help the spotted owl? not that I could tell.. I never saw a owl in the woods.. and if all the people I knew the only ones that had seen a single spotted owl were the USFS guys that I worked with, because when they shut down logging there was much protests and apparently someone knew where to find a spotted owl and it was left on the ranger station doorstep..
but back to your comment to send in about the owls.. I think it's great you are taking the time to get our hobby hopefully into the system for those who want to hunt them.. myself I don't want to hunt them and you did such a good write up, well I wish I could get it in email form so I could sign it and maybe if enough of us did it might make a difference.. worth a try..
I'm going to pm you my email address and if you don't mind somehow putting it in a email, I'll get someone to copy it to PDF so it's a regular letter and sign it and.. oh do you have a address to mail it to?
another thought is to also send it to congressman Cliff Benz.. he gets pretty involved in helping us Oregon people.. not sure what area you are in but I'm in Rogue River Oregon..
now to my only reservation about sending it in.. and also why I'm suggesting the congressman is from my experience around here and when I was up by Corvallis.. seems like a lot of things they put out for public input but then go ahead and decide whatever they want.. which is discouraging but if we have congressman making our voice heard it might get included..
also I don't know how many people you know on agn and if you know how to use the map of members and well I'd suggest if they were all contacted and hopefully they enjoy our hobby to make their voices heard.. way more likely to get it included.. and also what a great way for hopefully get others that might not be involved in airgun hunting to say.. this might be something new to try.. plus even more so if people see, this is a good way to get our kids and younger people into the shooting and hunting.. I just think it's a good way to promote the hobby.
but I'm totally open to hearing what others think..
I will put a few other comments down farther addressing a different part of this thread..
honestly I think you have a good idea
Mark
Like qball and Luis said, I too like owls and if there are that many in a given area, the rodent population must be quite large to support them....remove them and the rodent population explodes.....h'mmm.....
As I read it, the rationale is that the spotted owls were native to the area in question, and the barred owls have moved in. Since then, the numbers of spotted owls has decreased and number of barred owls increased. Barred and spotted are also breeding to make hybrids (with some kind of Morse code pattern?) So the management plan is to kill off the barred so that the spotted owls "recover".
I knew this would create controversy, that's why I posted it. Great stuff guys!There is a new hunting opportunity for us living in the Pacific Northwest
US Government wants 500,000 owls to be shot dead in cull
13,397 barred owls will be killed every year in the first decade, 16,303 a year in the second, and 17,390 birds annually in the third.
View attachment 413163
"We're from the government and we're here to screw things up." I agree with previous posters, if they are breeding together with a new species I'm not sure that's a bad thing.There is a new hunting opportunity for us living in the Pacific Northwest
US Government wants 500,000 owls to be shot dead in cull
13,397 barred owls will be killed every year in the first decade, 16,303 a year in the second, and 17,390 birds annually in the third.
View attachment 413163
www.upi.com 
! Times change as do conditions , sometimes it happens & there's no way to stop them . 