My apologies to the homeschooled Baptist kids for the Harry Potter picture on this story. I'll give you a moment to recover before witnessing this spectacular example of government waste.
We're spending over a billion dollars to keep one owl species from threatening the livelihood of another owl species.
(If only the U.S. government cared as much about humans as it did wildlife, just think of how far our tax dollars would go!)
More from Oregon Public Broadcasting:
The Biden administration appears to be doubling down on a plan to kill barred owls in order to protect the northern spotted owl populations in Northwest forests.
But a group of bipartisan Oregon legislators says it's a cruel and wasteful plan. They're calling on the incoming Trump administration's proposed Department of Government Efficiency to reverse the decision.
Stop and think about this for a moment.
A BIPARTISAN group of lawmakers.
In OREGON.
Supporting TRUMP'S PLANS.
Two years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a plan to shoot and kill an estimated 400,000 invasive barred owls at a cost of roughly $1.35 billion over the next three decades. On Wednesday, the Bureau of Land Management said it's signing on to that plan, too.
I'm not sure what's dumber: The plan itself or the fact that the Biden admin is going to solve it by spending $2,000-$3,000 per owl instead of letting average Americans have fun with their blasters for free.
Barred owls, which are bigger and more aggressive than spotted owls, can out-compete the smaller native birds for prey and nesting spots. They're one of the biggest threats to efforts to help spotted owl populations recover, alongside forest habitat loss. Fewer than 2,000 spotted owl pairs survive in Oregon, despite logging restrictions and decades of efforts to protect the species.
'Northern spotted owls are at a tipping point, and both barred owls and habitat have to be managed to save them,' Barry Bushue, BLM Oregon/Washington state director, said in an emailed statement. 'If we act now, future generations will still be able to see and hear northern spotted owls in our Pacific Northwest forests.'
Okay, Barry, but what happens in 30 years when you've spent that $1.35 BILLION and the barred owls start pushing the spotted owls toward extinction again?
But the pitch to kill one bird species to protect another has drawn skepticism from the beginning. While federal officials say the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan will help protect spotted owl populations, animal rights groups say it may just slow what could still be an inevitable extinction.
'This simply isn't a sound strategy — fiscally or ecologically,' Oregon state Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, said in a statement. 'As a staunch animal welfare advocate and a believer in evidence-based policy, I cannot support a plan that calls on taxpayers to front $45 million a year to cull a protected species. We certainly need to better address the decline we've seen in our spotted owl population, but this is not the way to do it.'
That's a DEMOCRAT, from OREGON, saying that Biden's Bureau of Land Management has gone too far off the reservation!!
Good old "Moderate Radical" Joe never disappoints.
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