Murder in the Wings

By Sara Wright

​My relationship with barred owls began when I built my little cabin in 2002. That first winter a pair hunted from the branches of two large pines situated not far from the living room windows.  These are large and very beautiful owls with mole brown striped feathers and a wingspan up to 50 inches. I looked for them at dusk (although I also heard them during the day) and occasionally witnessed a strike, but most of time I watched them just sitting in wait until it got too dark. Of course, with asymmetrical ears that can triangulate exact locations of prey, most meals probably appeared at night. In the mornings I would go out to see if their hunting had been successful. The sight of those unmistakable wing prints imprinted on new snow never failed to move me, though I knew some creature had lost its life. Owls need to eat too.

As early as January I would begin to hear barred owl calls. Too many sounds to describe except the hiss when pursued. The signature call that most people translate as ‘who cooks for you’ doesn’t work for me. I hear musical trills instead. The pair, they mate for life, frequently vocalized at dusk or at night during the following two months. The conversation seemed so complex and nuanced with an occasional ‘laugh’. After mating in March, the owls stopped calling until May or June when I would sometimes hear one during the daylight hours. Overall, I felt blessed. I loved these beautiful owls with their round faces and giant black orbs for eyes, the colors of the mole brown striped feathers, one of which was often left for me.

In May or June, it was common to hear these owls being mobbed by crows and bluejays, so I often followed the cacophony and sometimes intercepted the intruders, but mostly a hapless owl would try to escape by flying into other heavily protected evergreens unsuccessfully.

Although they hunted around here which at that time overlooked more field, I never discovered a nest assuming they had chosen an old hollow snag, crow or hawk nest further up the mountain. Later in the season, if I was fortunate, I would glimpse a youngster perched on a limb, but a parent was always nearby. These birds are excellent caregivers with the male feeding the female during the month-long incubation and then the family stays together for about six months. They eat small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects and are preyed upon by larger birds like the many eagles we have around here. Great horned owls are the other major predator.

These birds have a relatively small territory and mate for life. They return to the same nesting sites each year, so winter used to begin with me peering through the windows to see if they were around. I have no idea where they hunted during the rest of the year.

If undisturbed barred owls roost quietly during the day preferring being close to water in mixed evergreen and deciduous forests like mine.

However, in virtually all the literature I have read they prefer ‘old mature forests’ which I most definitely don’t have, so I was doubly grateful to have them because although my forest is mixed and I have plenty of water my forest was last cut maybe 50 years ago?

Then one year I didn’t hear one barred owl sing all winter. Behind me all the forests were being cut, so although deeply disappointed I realized the owls were losing their habitat. The only place I continued to see them was in a large hemlock stand on a nearby logging road. When those trees were finally stripped away, I stopped seeing or hearing barred owls at all.

By now my land was totally hemmed in except for one neighbor who logged only what he needed for his own use, a man who cares about his trees, but his trees were only a few years older than my young forest (I do have a small grove of  hemlocks, yellow birches, sugar maples a few big pines, and a stand of black elm sitting in the middle of my swamp but so does he).

Many years went by.

Then three years ago I was suddenly serenaded by barred owls one December dusk. I couldn’t believe it. That winter I heard them call to the west of me. Yes, my forest had been rewilding, returning to its natural state, so the trees have grown. My woods across the brook were thriving. But still, the trees have a lifetime or two to become ‘mature,’ and besides I own only a fragment, not enough territory to support barred owls. Every other piece of land along this road has undergone a radical transformation. Most trees except for my one abutting  tree caring neighbor are gone.

When the barred owls raised a family here last year I was overjoyed to have them back. And if this spring is any indication  perhaps this couple may be living here now somewhere across the brook, because I have been listening to barred owls all winter. In the beginning of March, I stood outside for at least 15 minutes one night to listen to an extended conversation between one pair.  Mating calls, I knew them well. Then all went quiet. I’ll have to be patient until May or June to hear owls calling again.

I have reached the sad conclusion that the the few that are left are returning to forest fragments - privately held lands - because they have no place else to go.

Up until recently barred owls inhabited the Northeast and portions of  New Mexico/ Mexico. But recently their range has extended  into the western part of the United States, and the ‘bird police’ have condemned them as invasive. In Abiquiu New Mexico where I lived with owls for four years, I heard them call infrequently but I knew they were there and part of the local ecosystem. Unfortunately, New Mexico also considers these owls invasive.
 
Barred owls according to the US Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Service, and Cornell’s Ornithology Department have determined that this western expansion is threatening the habitat of the rare spotted owl. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is also on board with the following decision which has already been implemented as of 2025.

Finalized in August 2024, the Barred Owl Management Strategy is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's long-term plan to protect native spotted owls in Washington, Oregon and California from the invasive barred owl species.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service barred owls displace spotted owls, disrupt their nesting, compete for food and in some cases, have interbred or killed spotted owls.

‘The Barred Owl Management Strategy’ permits the lethal removal of barred owls by attracting the owls with recorded calls and then shooting them when they respond and approach. In areas where firearms are not allowed, barrel owls may be captured and euthanized.
In all 500, 000 – half a million - barred owls will be killed over the next thirty years because it has been determined by the ‘experts’ that they are the problem.

No one mentions that in the east barred owl habitat has all but disappeared. Take Maine as an example. Maine is  considered to be the most heavily forested state, but no one talks about the size of the trees. The Maine Forest Service’s most recent survey found that only 7.2 percent of trees are in the thirteen to 21 -inch diameter, and only 0.5 percent are larger than 21 inches in diameter. Another way of saying the same thing is to state that ninety plus percent of our forests are full of trees less than a foot in diameter. We have less than 4 percent of what we now call late successional and old growth forest left in the state. But even more important is that overall, the structural and species biodiversity of our forests is being lost. Mature and ‘old growth’ (?) are more common in the west than in the east, particularly in the Northwest.

‘Invasive’? How idiotic. Barred owls are moving west because they have been forced to by human destruction. They need real forests to live in and to breed not hardwood sticks. Migrating west is a survival mechanism.

It is this kind of thinking/doing that reveals our distain for nature, and the human belief that we are the ‘gods of the earth’ who know how nature works when in truth we know almost nothing at all.
 

• Invasive Species:

In New Mexico, barred owls are considered an invasive species, as they have expanded their range from eastern North America into the west. 

• Competition with Native Owls:

Their expansion has led to competition with native owl species, like the Spotted Owl,and even hybridization with them, which threatens the native owl populations. 

• Abiquiu:

Abiquiu, New Mexico, is an area where barred owls are known to inhabit, and they are considered a part of the local ecosystem. 

 Barred Owls roost quietly in forest trees during the day, though they can occasionally be heard calling in daylight hours. At night they hunt small animals, especially rodents, and give an instantly recognizable “Who cooks for you?” call. 

Barred Owls live in large, mature forests made up of both deciduous trees and evergreens, often near water. They nest in tree cavities. In the Northwest, Barred Owls have moved into old-growth coniferous forest, where they compete with the threatened Spotted Owl.

In 2021, a disjunct population of Barred Owls in Mexico, long considered to be a subspecies of Barred Owl, was split and named Cinereous Owl (Strix sartorii).

Barred Owls (Strix varia) were historically residents of eastern United States, southern Canada, and disjunct regions of south-central Mexico, but have expanded into western North America and now occur throughout the range of the Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) and California Spotted Owl 

What is the Barred Owl Management Strategy?

Finalized in August 2024, the Barred Owl Management Strategy is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's long-term plan to protect native spotted owls in Washington, Oregon and California from the invasive barred owl species.

The northern spotted owl, native to the West Coast region, has been endangered since 1990. The species is listed as Near Threatened under the Endangered Species Act and according to the American Bird Conservancy, only about 15,000 spotted owls remain in the U.S.

Barred owls, larger and more aggressive than spotted owls, have been invading the West Coast region since the 20th century, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Barred owls displace spotted owls, disrupt their nesting, compete for food and in some cases, have interbred or killed spotted owls.

The Barred Owl Management Strategy permits the lethal removal of barred owls by attracting the owls with recorded calls and then shooting them when they respond and approach. In areas where firearms are not allowed, barrel owls may be captured and euthanized. These procedures will be conducted in less than half of the identified regions − more than 24 million acres − and may only be completed by specialists, not the general public.
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"The protocol is based on the experience gathered from several previous barred owl removal studies and is designed to ensure a quick, humane kill; minimize the potential for non-fatal injury to barred owls; and vastly reduce the potential for non-target species injury or death," the strategy reads.