This week, U.S. senators voted against halting a plan to kill off more than 450,000 barred owls to protect another species of owl—the spotted owl.

Why It Matters

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) explains that spotted owls are native to western North America and are threatened by invasive barred owls, in addition to habitat loss from timber harvests and wildfires. Barred owls, native to eastern North America, began expanding west around 1900 as human activity altered forests and the Great Plains. Larger and more aggressive, barred owls have displaced spotted owls from their historical territory, according to the agency.

USFWS has previously said that actions to address the threat of barred owls to spotted owls are “necessary to support the survival of the threatened northern sp

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