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The strange political bedfellows created by efforts to save spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest just got even stranger.

Already Republican members of Congress were allied with animal rights activists.
They don’t want trained shooters to kill up to 450,000 barred owls, which are outcompeting northern spotted owls, under a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan approved last year that would unfold over three decades.

Now, timber interests are aligning with environmentalists in favor of culling the owls.

Some logging advocates are afraid nixing the plan will slow down timber harvesting. Roughly 2.6 million acres of timberlands in western Oregon managed by the Bureau of Land Management are governed by resource management plans contingent on the barred owl cull going forward, according to Travis Joseph, president and chief executive of the American Forest Resource Council, a trade association representing mills, loggers, lumber buyers and other stakeholders in the region.

The area can produce at least 278 million board feet per year under current plans, “with the potential for significantly more,” Joseph said in a mid-October letter to Congress.

If the cull is scrapped, he said, the federal agency likely will need to restart Endangered Species Act consultation for the northern spotted owl, which is listed as threatened. It’s a process that could take years. According to the letter, it would create “unacceptable risks and delays to current and future timber sales.”

Timber production goals laid out by the Trump administration also could be jeopardized.

Momentum to stop the cull gained ground this summer when Sen. John Kennedy, a conservative from Louisiana, introduced a resolution to reverse the Biden-era plan.
That move reflected an unlikely alliance between some right-wing politicians and animal rights advocates who say it’s too expensive and inhumane. Some Democrats have also opposed the cull, and companion legislation in the House has bipartisan backers.

The stakes are high. Many environmentalists and scientists maintain that northern spotted owls will go extinct if their competitors aren’t kept in check. Barred owls — which originally hail from eastern North America — are larger, more aggressive and less picky when it comes to habitat and food, giving them an edge when vying for resources.

Last week, Politico’s E&E News reported that Kennedy said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum asked him to stand down from his effort to stop the owl-killing plan. The legislator told the outlet he would charge ahead anyway.

“I don’t think the federal government ought to be telling God, nature — whatever you believe in — this one can exist, this one can’t,” Kennedy told E&E. “The barred owl is not the first species that has ever moved its territory and it won’t be the last.”

Kennedy did not respond to The Times’ request for comment. A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said they could not respond to the inquiry because of the government shutdown.

“It’s strange that a Republican in the south is taking on the owl issue, specifically, when its consequences will impact western Oregon BLM timber sales,” Joseph said in an interview. “It will lead to lower revenues for counties, it will impact jobs and it will put the spotted owl on a trajectory towards extinction.”

The stance aligns in part with that of environmental groups like the Environmental Protection Information Center and Center for Biological Diversity, which have supported culling barred owls to help the beleaguered spotted owls in their native territory. It’s an unexpected overlap, given environmentalists’ long history of fighting to protect old-growth forests in the region the owls call home.

Tom Wheeler, chief executive of EPIC, said it’s possible that culling barred owls could lead to a bump in timber harvest on the BLM land in western Oregon but overall it would lead to more habitat being protected throughout the spotted owls’ expansive range. The presence of spotted owls triggers protections under the Endangered Species Act. If the cull boosts the spotted owl population as intended, it means more guardrails.

“It puts us in admittedly an awkward place,” Wheeler said. “But our advocacy for barred owl removal is predicated not on treating the northern spotted owl as a tool against the timber industry and against timber harvest. What we’re trying to do is provide for the continued existence of the species.”

Many Native American tribes support controlling barred owls in the region. In a letter to Congress last week, the nonprofit Intertribal Timber Council said barred owls threaten more than the spotted owl.

“As a generalist predator, it poses risks to a wide range of forest and aquatic species that hold varying degrees of social and ecological importance to tribes, including species integral to traditional food systems and watershed health,” wrote the council, which aims to improve the management of natural resources important to Native American communities.

Since 2013, the Hoopa Valley tribe in Northern California has been involved with sanctioned hunting of the owls and has observed the spotted owl population stabilizing over time, according to the letter.

However, groups like Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Human Economy argue that the plan to take out so many barred owls over a vast landscape won’t work, aside from the high owl death toll. More barred owls simply will fly into where others were removed, said Wayne Pacelle, president of both groups.

That makes habitat key — and the prospect of losing more to logging in western Oregon devastating, according to Pacelle.

To stop the owl-culling plan, both chambers of Congress would need to pass a joint resolution and President Trump would need to sign it. If successful, the resolution would preclude the agency from pursuing a similar rule, unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

The plan already faced setbacks. In May, federal officials canceled three related grants totaling more than $1.1 million, including one study that would have removed barred owls from over 192,000 acres in Mendocino and Sonoma counties

An unusual alliance of Republican lawmakers and animal rights advocates, together with others, is creating storm clouds for a plan to protect one threatened owl by killing a more common one.

Last August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a plan to shoot roughly 450,000 barred owls in California, Oregon and Washington over three decades. The barred owls have been out-competing imperiled northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest, as well as California spotted owls, pushing them out of their territory.

Supporters of the approach — including conservation groups and prominent scientists — believe the cull is necessary to avert disastrous consequences for the spotted owls.

But the coalition argues the effort is too expensive, unworkable and inhumane. They’re urging the Trump administration to cancel it and lawmakers could pursue a reversal through special congressional action.

Last month, The Times has found, federal officials canceled three owl-related grants to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife totaling roughly $1.1 million, including one study that would remove barred owls from over 192,000 acres in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

A female barred owl sits on a branch in the wooded hills, Dec. 13, 2017, outside Philomath, Ore.

(Don Ryan / Associated Press)

Two were nixed before federal funding was allocated and never got off the ground, Peter Tira, a spokesperson for the state wildlife agency, said. Another, a collaboration with University of Maryland biologists to better understand barred owl dispersal patterns in western forests, was nearly complete when terminated.

“Under President Donald J. Trump’s leadership, we are eliminating wasteful programs, cutting unnecessary costs and ensuring every dollar serves a clear purpose,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement when asked whether the grants had been terminated.

Another lever would be for Congress to overturn the owl-kill plan altogether using the Congressional Review Act.

The Government Accountability Office concluded in a late-May decision that the plan is subject to that act, sometimes used by new presidential administrations to reverse rules issued by federal agencies in the final months of prior administrations. Both chambers of Congress would need to pass a joint resolution to undo it.

In the months leading up to the GAO determination, bipartisan groups of U.S. House members wrote two letters to the secretary of the Interior laying out reasons why the owl-cull plan should not move forward. In total, 19 Republicans and 18 Democrats signed the letters, including seven lawmakers from California — David Valadao (R-Hanford), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), Gil Cisneros (D-Covina), Josh Harder (D-Tracy), Linda T. Sánchez (D-Whittier), Jim Costa (D-Fresno) and Adam Gray (D-Merced).

Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Texas), an ardent Trump supporter, signed the initial letter, and is “currently exploring other options to end this unnecessary plan, which prioritizes one species of owls over another, and wastes Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars,” communications director Emily Matthews said.

Kamlager-Dove said also said earlier this year that she objected to killing one species to preserve another. “And as an animal lover, I cannot support the widespread slaughter of these beautiful creatures,” she said.

If a resolution is introduced, passed and signed by President Trump, the plan will be over. The Fish and Wildlife Service would not be allowed to bring forward a similar rule, unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, which supports reducing the barred owl population, called the specter of the Congressional Review Act “very scary.”

It’s “an intrusion by Congress into areas where we’re relying on high agency expertise and scientific understanding,” he said. “It’s vibes versus science.”

A California spotted owl is shown inside the Tahoe National Forest in California on July 12, 2004.

(Debra Reid / Associated Press)

Wheeler said he believed it was more likely the program would be deprioritized amid budget cuts than eliminated through the Act.

“If we don’t move forward with barred owl removal, it will mean the extinction of the northern spotted owl, and it will likely mean the extinction of the California spotted owl as well,” he said.

Science is on its side, he said. A long-term field experiment showed that where barred owls were killed, the population of spotted owls stabilized.

For animal welfare activist Wayne Pacelle, who has galvanized opposition to the owl-cull plan, it’s a hopeful turn of events.

“Even if they had full funding for this, we don’t think it could possibly succeed,” said Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy. The land area where the barred owls need to be controlled is just too vast, he said. And barred owls from elsewhere, he said, will simply fly in and replace those that are felled.

As few as 3,000 northern spotted owls are left on federal lands. The brown raptors with white spots are listed as threatened under both the California and federal Endangered Species Act.

California spotted owls are also in decline, and federal wildlife officials have proposed endangered species protections for two populations.

The two sides of the fierce debate agree that barred and spotted owls compete for nesting sites and food — such as woodrats and northern flying squirrels.

Barred owls and spotted owls are similar in appearance and can even interbreed. But barred owls are more aggressive and slightly larger, in addition to being more generalist when it comes to what they’ll eat and where they’ll live, allowing them to muscle out their fellow raptors.

Federal wildlife officials and some conservationists consider barred owls invasive.

As Europeans settled the Great Plains, they suppressed fire and planted trees, allowing barred owls to expand westward from their origin in eastern North America, biologists believe.

“I would call this an invasion, and I would call these non-native species,” Wheeler said.

On the flip side, some see the owl arrival along the West Coast as natural range expansion.

There are also conflicting views of the cost of exterminating so many owls.

Opponents estimate it will cost about $1.35 billion, extrapolated from a $4.5-million contract awarded to a Northern California Native American tribe last year to hunt about 1,500 barred owls over four years.

A 2024 research paper, however, concluded that barred owl removal in the range of the northern spotted owl would cost from $4.5 million to $12 million per year in its initial stages, and would likely decrease over time. At $12 million a year, the 30-year plan would run $360 million.

Pacelle’s Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy have also sued the Fish and Wildlife Service in U.S. District Court in Washington state over the plan. Friends of Animals, another animal welfare group, filed suit in Oregon.

Wheeler’s Environmental Protection Information Center has intervened in the suits in defense of the plan, and those cases continue to advance.

WASHINGTON — Filmmaker Peter Jackson owns one of the largest private collections of bones of an extinct New Zealand bird called the moa. His fascination with the flightless ostrich-like bird has led to an unusual partnership with a biotech company known for its grand and controversial plans to bring back lost species.

Last week, Colossal Biosciences announced an effort to genetically engineer living birds to resemble the extinct South Island giant moa — which stood 12 feet tall — with $15 million in funding from Jackson and his partner, Fran Walsh. The collaboration also includes the New Zealand-based Ngai Tahu Research Center.

“The movies are my day job, and the moa are my fun thing I do,” Jackson said. “Every New Zealand schoolchild has a fascination with the moa.”

Outside scientists say the idea of bringing back extinct species onto the modern landscape is likely impossible, although it may be feasible to tweak the genes of living animals to have similar physical traits. Scientists have mixed feelings on whether that will be helpful, and some worry that focusing on lost creatures could distract from protecting species that still exist.

The moa had roamed New Zealand for 4,000 years until they became extinct around 600 years ago, mainly because of overhunting. A large skeleton brought to England in the 19th century, now on display at the Yorkshire Museum, prompted international interest in the long-necked bird.

An artist’s depiction of the largest species of moa, the South Island giant moa, which could stand 12 feet tall.

(Colossal Biosciences via AP)

Unlike Colossal’s work with dire wolves, the moa project is in very early stages. It started with a phone call about two years ago after Jackson heard about the company’s efforts to “de-extinct” — or create genetically similar animals to — species such as the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf.

Then Jackson put Colossal in touch with experts he’d met through his own moa bone collecting. At that point, he’d amassed 300 to 400 bones, he said.

In New Zealand, it’s legal to buy and sell moa bones found on private lands, but not on public conservation areas — nor to export them.

The first stage of the moa project will be to identify well-preserved bones from which it may be possible to extract DNA, Colossal’s chief scientist, Beth Shapiro, said.

Those DNA sequences will be compared with genomes of living bird species, including the ground-dwelling tinamou and emu, “to figure out what it is that made the moa unique compared to other birds,” she said.

Colossal used a similar process of comparing ancient DNA of extinct dire wolves to determine the genetic differences with gray wolves. Then scientists took blood cells from a living gray wolf and used the CRISPR gene-editing tool to modify them at 20 sites. Pups with long white hair and muscular jaws were born late last year.

Working with birds presents different challenges, Shapiro said.

Unlike mammals, bird embryos develop inside eggs, so the process of transferring an embryo to a surrogate will not look like mammalian IVF.

“There’s lots of different scientific hurdles that need to be overcome with any species that we pick as a candidate for de-extinction,” Shapiro said. “We are in the very early stages.”

If the Colossal team succeeds in creating a tall bird with huge feet and thick pointed claws resembling the moa, there’s also the pressing question of where to put it, said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who is not involved in the project.

“Can you put a species back into the wild once you’ve exterminated it there?” he said. “I think it’s exceedingly unlikely that they could do this in any meaningful way.”

“This will be an extremely dangerous animal,” Pimm added.

The direction of the project will be shaped by Maori scholars at the University of Canterbury’s Ngai Tahu Research Center. Ngai Tahu archaeologist Kyle Davis, an expert in moa bones, said the work has “really reinvigorated the interest in examining our own traditions and mythology.”

At one of the archaeological sites that Jackson and Davis visited to study moa remains, called Pyramid Valley, there are also antique rock art done by Maori people — some depicting moa before their extinction.

The South Island giant moa at 12 feet tall would dwarf even the tallest humans.

(Colossal Biosciences via AP)

Paul Scofield, a project advisor and senior curator of natural history at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, said he first met the “Lord of the Rings” director when he went to his house to help him identity which of the nine known species of moa the various bones represented.

“He doesn’t just collect some moa bones; he has a comprehensive collection,” Scofield said.

Larson writes for the Associated Press. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

It’s been 50 years since “Jaws” ruined that summer, spawning a fleet of increasingly dreadful sequels and knockoffs, turning a simple fish into a movie monster, and a dozen since “Sharknado” turned the monster into a joke. Sharks had been swimming in the culture before that, to be sure, often with the prefix “man-eating” appended, though men eat sharks too, and way more often — so who’s the real apex predator? And even though they are not as naturally cute as our cousins the dolphins and whales — I have never heard of one balancing a ball on its nose — they have also been made adorable as plush toys and cartoon characters.

“All the Sharks,” premiering Friday on Netflix, is a competition show in which four teams of two vie to photograph the most, and the most different, species of sharks, across two eight-hour days, and are set loose in the waters off Japan, the Maldives, South Africa, Australia, the Bahamas and the Galapagos Islands. And, brother, are there a lot of varieties — hammerhead shark, walking shark, whale shark, tawny nurse shark, pajama shark, pelagic thresher, tiger shark, tasselled wobbegong shark, puffadder shy shark, baby shark, mommy shark and daddy shark, to name but a few. (There are 124 species of sharks in Japanese waters, we’re told, and 200 off South Africa.) Points are awarded according to the rarity or abundance of the species in each location. These sharks are neither monsters nor jokes, though at least one contestant finds the banded houndshark “freaking adorable … their little cat eyes, their subterminal mouth.”

As competitions go, it is friendly, like “The Great British Baking Show” or “MasterChef Junior.” There’s no way to sabotage your opponents, no strategy past guessing where the sharks might be running, eating or hanging out. The purse — $50,000 — goes to the winners’ chosen marine charity, though prizes are also awarded to the top-scoring team in each episode. (Cool gear, seaside vacations.) Winning is not so much the point as just staying in as long as possible — because it’s fun. Sometimes things don’t go a team’s way, but no one has a bad attitude.

“All the Sharks” is hosted by Tom “The Blowfish” Hird, far left. The competitors are Randy Thomas, Rosie Moore, Aliah Banchik, MJ Algarra, Dan Abbott, Sarah Roberts, Brendan Talwar and Chris Malinowski.

(Netflix)

Naturally they are good-looking, because this is television, and fit, because you need to be to do this; most have professional expertise in fishy, watery or wild things. (They certainly know their sharks.) Brendan (marine biologist) and Chris (fisheries ecologist) are a team called the Shark Docs. Aliah (marine biologist specializing in stingrays — which are closely related to sharks, did you know?) and MJ, identified as an avid spearfisher and shark diver, comprise Gills Gone Wild; they met at a “bikini beach cleanup” and have been besties ever since. British Bait Off are Sarah (environmental journalist) and Dan (underwater cameraman), who like a cup of tea. And finally, there are the Land Sharks, Randy and Rosie. Dreadlocked Randy, a wildlife biologist, says, “I was always one of the only Black guys in my classes … I got that all the time: ‘Oh, you’re doing that white boy stuff’ and it’s just like, ‘No, I’m doing stuff that I love.’” Rosie, an ecologist who specializes in apex predators, wants to show girls it’s “OK to be badass … work with these crazy animals, get down and dirty.” She can hold her breath for five minutes.

The show has been produced with the usual tics of the genre: comments presented in the present tense that could only have been taped later; dramatic music and editing; the “hey ho uh-oh” narrative framing of big, loud host Tom “The Blowfish” Hird, with his braided pirate’s beard, whose website identifies him as a “heavy metal marine biologist.” Footage of great white sharks — the variety “Jaws” made famous — is inserted for the thrill factor, but none are coming.

But whatever massaging has been applied, “All the Sharks” is real enough. The contestants deal with rough seas, strong currents, jellyfish and sundry venomous creatures, intruding fishermen, limited air, sinus crises, variable visibility and unexpected orcas. And the sharks — who do not seem particularly interested in the humans, as there is no lack of familiar lunch options — do sometimes arrive in great, unsettling profusion. (There’s a reason “shark-infested waters” became a phrase.) Meanwhile, the ocean itself plays its ungovernable part. In their enveloping blueness, dotted with colorful fish and coral reefs, the undersea scenes are, in fact, quite meditative. (Humans move slow down there.) Someone describes it as like being inside a screen saver.

In the bargain, we learn not a little bit about shark behavior and biology, and there is an implicit, sometimes explicit, conservation theme. Each encountered species gets a graphic describing not only its length, weight and lifespan but the degree to which it is or isn’t endangered — and, sad to say, many are.