Whoo Knew? Obama Administration To Kill One Kind Of Owl To "Save" Another

Straight from the “truth is stranger than fiction” file comes this:

To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside.

The plan is the latest federal attempt to protect the northern spotted owl, the passive one-pound bird that sparked an epic battle over logging in the Pacific Northwest two decades ago.

Okay, so what happens when the barred owl is also endangered because everyone’s shooting them? They don’t have an answer for that one, but they do admit “an ethical dilemma”

Officials acknowledge that the plan to kill barred owls creates an ethical dilemma, but say an experiment on private land in northern California has shown promising results. Spotted owls have returned to historic territories after barred owls were removed.

Here’s another dilemma… if, as the lefties believe, humans are responsible for the spotted owl’s decreasing numbers (a belief I question, but let’s accept it for the sake of the argument), why is it suddenly perfectly alright for humans to deliberately kill the barred owl? Why should we be so speciesist as to favor one owl over the other?

But, don’t worry, it’ll create jobs!

Salazar and other officials stressed the new plan’s job-creation component, noting that for the first time logging would be allowed in areas designated as critical habitat for the owl. Previous plans had barred logging in areas designated as critical habitat.

So, we kill birds to create jobs. Now, if the birds were edible (like chickens), I’d support hunting them, but killing a bird just because it bothers a more politically-favored bird really ruffles my feathers.