Spotted Owls Summary

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Summary: Environmentalists and biologists are struggling to decide what needs to be done for the spotted owls, which were listed as a threatened species back in 1990. Another owl, the barred owl, has posed a recent threat on these threatened spotted owls. Both the barred owls and the spotted owls are native species to the Pacific Northwest, however, because the barred owl seems better suited for the environment, they are posing an even greater threat for the already threatened spotted owls. Do to loss of habitat from foresting, the spotted owl began to greatly suffer. The barred owl on the other hand, is good at everything. They are able to adapt quicker than the spotted owl, and are thriving because of that. The big debate is what to do to…show more content…
I think the author holds a bit of bias in this article. It seems as though he believes nothing should be done. He starts off his article by saying “nothing’s worked” and listing a few examples. By this being the first thing the reader reads, the views may be shifted towards believing nothing can work. This falls to the side of letting natural selection run its course. Whenever the author talks about the opposing side, he quickly counteracts with why that wouldn’t work. He also strongly mentions how human interaction is one of the key points in why we have this problem in the first place. Unanswered Questions: In what ways are the barred owls taking over? The spotted owls are threatened due to loss of habitat, and the habitat that they have is being taken over by barred owls. But what specifically is the cause of this? Is there not enough food for both owls in this habitat? Not enough shelter? Are there any other suggested methods to fixing this problem? The two discussed were: killing the barred owls to give the spotted owls a better chance at survival and leaving things to natural selection. Its hard to believe that those are the only two methods that were thought of between a collection of biologists and

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