Conservationists: Oh boy, here I go killing again!
To be fair that’s a very important part
Up until people start asking how you tell the endangered owls from the invasive owls while holding two dead owls
Rule one of hunting is to identify your target
At least statistically if you shot a bunch of random owls you’re most likely to have shot all invasive owls…
If there’s one thing I know about the hunting community, it’s how much they love rules
I don’t know what you think hunters are doing, just casually shooting every flying thing lol
Uh huh. Hey, how do you easily tell the difference between the two species?
Off the top of your head.
People who go hunting don’t go by “off the top of their head”.
Now I can’t speak to the laws in California for hunting, but in Canada they have pretty crazy strict laws regarding illegal hunting, including seizure of anything used in the act (trucks, atvs, guns, boats, etc), removal of gun license, and huge fines.
A quick google search shows the method they’ve used, and have been using for the last decade as an attempt to stop the spread: Barred owls are much more aggressive, and playing their calls can lure them in to fight, in a way the spotted owls don’t, so you don’t need to just go based on visual differences. Here’s one article about the removal process up to now with an interview of a biologist who’s pro-hunting.
Relocation of the barred owls isn’t feasible, because no matter where you send them, there’s probably already owls there, and relocation often results in the animal dying off anyway.
What’s the alternative? Watch as the spotted owls are out-competed and go extinct due to human development and habitat destruction? To me, that seems worse. We already hunt to maintain populations of animals in other species - deer spring to mind. Since we’ve eliminated many of the deer’s predators, we need to maintain that role, which includes setting hunting targets each year. Why are these owls different?
Lol
very convincing argument
Visually, in most cases.
Hunters are supposed to be able to identify accurately what they’re shooting specifically so that they don’t kill endangered species or animals you’re otherwise not allowed to shoot. Sometimes it can be hard but if you’re not sure, never pull the trigger.
Sure bro
You’re welcome
How are you so confidently uninformed? “I know nothing about this subject so I’m probably qualified to make wild assumptions”
https://lemmy.world/post/14121035
😂
Good timing, or just shit the hicks do every day?
I know which is true in my neck of the woods.
I actually know hunters. Good luck with the purge, lmao
Kill enough until they’re both endangered, then it’ll be easy
That’s thinking with patriotism!
Yeah. Actual conservationists tend to be pretty good shots.
“Conserve this.”
Gunshot
So there’s barn owls and barred owls? Who is coming up with these names?
Scientists have a long seemingly treasured history of trolling everything with their naming of stuff. Not a scientist, so I can’t confirm. But from the outside it sure looks like they have a lot of fun with it.
ITT: the difference between conservationists and “conservationists”
Owl is back on the menu boys!
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Are they an invasive species?
Unfortunately so. They are an Eastern US species that has been moving ever westward. And they are, in bird law terms, ‘huge dicks’. They’ve been systematically kicking Spotted Owls out of their traditional roosting spots for about a decade now. Spotted Owls are pushovers, so they’ve been losing breeding ground. And barred owls are not just dicks to other birds, they don’t like humans much either.
Were they introduced to the west by humans? If this migration is occurring without human intervention this is just evolution doing its thing.
It’s going to be hard to remove human influence on this equation considering almost everywhere the human influence is present.
Agreed, I think a lot of conservationism can even go too far in removing or preventing natural adaptation to the human presence. I was mostly referring to cases where humans can transport species between local ecosystems in a way that wouldn’t occur otherwise, which can result in an environmental imbalance that doesn’t always fix itself since such changes in range don’t usually occur naturally on a scale as large as with, say, the introduction of the brown marmorated stinkbug into North America from Asia.
