A longer version of this article originally appeared in the Washington State Standard.
A controversial plan to kill up to half a million invasive barred owls to protect endangered spotted owls is in jeopardy after the Trump administration terminated three critical grants funding the program.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s barred owl management strategy was approved last September.
The plan, set to start this year and continue for three decades, called for the lethal removal of barred owls in Washington, Oregon and California by shooting them with shotguns or, less frequently, capturing and euthanizing them.
Barred owls and spotted owls prefer the same habitat and compete for the same food. But the barred owl is larger and more aggressive, and typically prevails in conflicts with the spotted owl.
Julia Smith, endangered species recovery section manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the state Fish and Wildlife Commission last week that the northern spotted owl will be functionally extinct in Washington within the next decade if no new action is taken.
“There’s no easy button to recover this bird, and we’re left with only the most difficult options,” Smith said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said its plan to shoot barred owls would result in the annual removal of less than one-half of 1% of the species’ North American population.
Animal rights activists and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have publicly opposed the plan, calling it costly, unsustainable and inhumane.
Now the Trump administration has canceled $1.1 million in grants to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to enact the program, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
The grant cancellation is the first public indication of the administration’s stance on the plan.
Washington is home to the endangered northern spotted owl, which was designated as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act nearly 25 years ago.
In the Pacific Northwest, spotted owls are known for their central role in the “timber wars” of the 1980s and 1990s, which pitted environmentalists concerned about saving old-growth trees against loggers.
This conflict eventually led to the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which put new protections in place for forests where the spotted owl lives.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that the rate of spotted owl population decline showed signs of improvement until about 2008, but accelerated soon after, and that the downturn coincided with the expansion of barred owls into spotted owls’ territory.
Smith, with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said modeling of what would happen if barred owls were no longer present in Washington showed the spotted owl population growing steadily for the next 15 years and stabilizing in 30 to 40 years.
The Washington State Standard originally published a longer version of this story on July 22, 2025. Cascade PBS has edited this story for length.
