{"id":10292,"date":"2011-07-01T13:38:13","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T17:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=10292"},"modified":"2011-07-01T13:38:49","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T17:38:49","slug":"feds-take-a-side-in-%e2%80%9cowl-wars%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/10292\/feds-take-a-side-in-%e2%80%9cowl-wars%e2%80%9d\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds Take a Side in \u201cOwl Wars\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, isn’t this a hoot?\u00a0 Ever since the spotted owl was listed as an endangered species in 1990, the federal government has gone out of its way to limit timber companies from diminishing its wooded living spaces.\u00a0 But while the Feds were concentrating on keeping dreaded homo sapiens<\/em> at bay, another creature swooped in threatening to kill-off spotted owls: barred owls.<\/p>\n

It turns out that barred owls are bigger and meaner than their spotted cousins.\u00a0 According to Reuters<\/em><\/a>, barred owls \u201chave made steady gains in displacing spotted owls, which are being disrupted during nesting and are losing out in the competition for mice and other food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some questions come to mind.\u00a0 Who\u2019s protecting the mice these owls are hunting mercilessly?\u00a0 Surely, the mouse \u201cand other food\u201d constituencies are being impacted negatively by the increase in predator supply.<\/p>\n

Also, isn\u2019t the barred owl vs. spotted owl contest really a matter of survival of the fittest?\u00a0 If human societies always evolve toward higher, better, more progressive outcomes, why not members of the animal kingdom?<\/p>\n

Maybe this bird-on-bird fight has another dimension that liberals don\u2019t want to contemplate.\u00a0 Perhaps the spotted owls got fat and happy with government removing competition for resources.\u00a0 As it nested quietly, maybe the species forgot how to fight for food.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s one other point to make: The barred owls are from the East Coast.\u00a0 They only began settling in the spotted owl\u2019s Pacific Northwest territory in the 1970\u2019s.\u00a0 In only a few decades, the barred owls have multiplied faster and staked out more territory than the native spotted owls.\u00a0 If the Feds let nature and demography continue there will be no spotted owls left in a few years.<\/p>\n

Partisans for the spotted owl want the Feds to take \u201cdecisive action\u201d against the barred owl to save the spotted owl\u2019s way of life.\u00a0 The Feds are contemplating doing just that, even though it probably means capturing and killing owls who are just trying to scratch out an existence.\u00a0 The real problem here seems to be letting a situation get out of control through either ignorance or incompetence.\u00a0 Now, there are no good options for getting the genie back in the bottle.<\/p>\n

Much like mice, food for thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, isn’t this a hoot?\u00a0 Ever since the spotted owl was listed as an endangered species in 1990, the federal government has gone out of its way to limit timber companies from diminishing its wooded living spaces.\u00a0 But while the Feds were concentrating on keeping dreaded homo sapiens at bay, another creature swooped in threatening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2823,2824,196,2825,2826,2827,2822],"class_list":["post-10292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barred-owl","tag-endangered-species","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-mice","tag-mouse","tag-spotted-owl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10292"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10313,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10292\/revisions\/10313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}