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Dear friend,
On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times published a front-page story confirming what we’ve been working toward for months: the Trump Administration has terminated three “bridge” grants that would have been essential to launching the Biden Administration’s inhumane plan to kill more than 450,000 barred owls across California, Oregon, and Washington.
Not only does the Interior Department action spare owls from nighttime shoots, it signals that the agency charged with carrying out the plan no longer believes in it.
That said, while these lethal projects are defunded, the kill plan is still the policy of the United States. We must now double down and ask Congress to nullify it. That’s where we need your help.
Our Path Forward: The Congressional Review Act
In May 2025, the Government Accountability Office confirmed that this plan can be rescinded under the Congressional Review Act—a powerful legal tool that allows Congress to overturn new federal rules with a simple majority vote in both chambers and the president’s signature.
That means you have the power to help stop this plan.
A Cruel, Costly, and Futile Strategy
In September 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a formal Record of Decision approving the Barred Owl Management Strategy, which calls for mass killing of a native, protected species across 24 million acres— including 17 national forests and 14 national park units from Olympic to Crater Lake to Yosemite. The aim is to reduce social competition between barred owls and their close cousins, the Northern and California spotted owls.
This plan is unworkable and unaffordable. It amounts to playing Russian roulette with lookalike owls. There are no winners in such a reckless game.
* Futile. Even if fully funded, the plan would only clear barred owls from about 28% of spotted owl range. Given the abundance of barred owls in surrounding forests and Canada, birds would quickly recolonize cleared areas—turning this into a never-ending Whac-A- Mole exercise.
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* Expensive. The price tag could soar to $1.35 billion over 30 years. The FWS awarded $4.5 million to the Hoopa Valley Tribe to kill just 1,500 owls—about $3,000 per bird. Scaled to the full proposal, the cost is staggering.
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* Politically Naive. The plan would have to survive 30 years of annual federal funding battles—spanning 15 congressional election cycles and up to seven presidential administrations. With so much opposition to it already, the plan appears doomed, and it’s a fool’s errand to charge ahead and start shooting owls with no ultimate chance of success.
Barred owls are native birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act for more than 100 years. And as leading forest owl biologist Dr. Eric Forsman said, “If you ever stopped, they would begin to come back... We’re just going to have to let the two species work it out.”
Take Action Now
We are urging every supporter to contact his or her two U.S. senators and U.S. representative and ask them to support a resolution to rescind the Barred Owl Management Strategy under the Congressional Review Act. [[link removed]]

TAKE ACTION [[link removed]]

Your voice matters. Lawmakers need to hear loud and clear that the American public will not accept a billion-dollar wildlife slaughter that is logistically impossible, demonstrably inhumane, and unprecedented in its assault on native North American owls long protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
We have already seen 37 members of Congress—Republicans and Democrats alike—speak out against the plan. More than 350 organizations, including 29 local Audubon chapters, oppose it. Leading newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and The Columbian have editorialized against it.
Now we need every voice in our movement to rise up and help stop this plan once and for all.
Let’s honor our values. Let’s protect native wildlife. And let’s send a message that massive, indiscriminate killing of birds is not conservation—it’s a failure of imagination and ethics.
For all owls,
Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Center for a Humane Economy
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