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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Environment
Maanvi Singh in Oakland

Killing owls to save owls: the US wildlife plan that sparked an ‘ethical dilemma’

United States Tom Wheeler Wayne Pacelle Service the US Fish and Wildlife Service
Two owls, one brown and one white, sit on a branch
The spotted owl, pictured here, is an elusive icon of the American west that has lost most of its habitat in the Pacific north-west and Canada due to logging and development. Photograph: All Canada Photos/Alamy

It sounds like a set-up for an ecological horror film – to save one species of owl, US wildlife officials want to shoot down half a million of its cousins.

The federal government’s latest proposal to save the endangered spotted owls has raised complicated questions about the ethics of killing one species to save another, and the role of humans to intervene in the cascading ecological conundrums that they have caused.

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