By Suzanne Downing 
In case you missed it this month, The Alaska Story’s Suzanne Downing was featured on The America Outdoor Radio Show to talk about one of the most controversial wildlife decisions the federal government has made in years: the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s plan, under the Biden Administration, to exterminate 450,000 barred owls across the Pacific Northwest.
America Outdoors Radio – November 08, 2025
Downing spoke to the core issue driving nationwide outrage: The agency’s justification for the massive culling effort is that barred owls are simply better hunters than the northern spotted owl, outcompeting them for food.
The barred owls are not an invasive species in the traditional sense; they are naturally expanding their range as they have been for decades. The federal government is choosing winners and losers based on outcomes it prefers, a kind of DEI for owls, Downing explained on the show.
She reminded listeners that it was only a few years ago that logging was halted in much of Oregon after federal agencies claimed timber harvesting was responsible for declines in the northern spotted owl.
Now, after decades of restrictions on rural communities and lost jobs tied to those policies, the government is acknowledging that habitat loss was never the primary threat. Instead, it is the barred owl, a species that is thriving on its own merits, that stands accused of being too successful.
The segment aired on America Outdoors Radio, a nationally syndicated program heard on more than 160 stations across the country and on the American Forces Network. The show, hosted by Pacific Northwest outdoorsman and broadcaster John Kruse, features interviews with experts to help listeners improve their skills in the field and on the water, highlights outdoor destinations from national parks to wildlife refuges, provides the latest outdoor news, and is available as a podcast for those who miss an episode or want to replay it.
Kruse, an experienced writer and radio host who has fished, hunted, hiked, camped, and paddled across much of North America, is also the author of Great Places Washington and the longtime host of Northwestern Outdoors Radio.
So good to see you back, SD. The old web site was a disaster after you left!
Owls. Not too much of a difference when government bureaucrats decided to pay to have bald eagles killed- and paid a bounty for eagle feet. The government seldom gets it right. Government at almost all levels is the enemy.
Rest ‘peaceful’ and ‘assured’ that the Federal Guv’ment is here to solve all problems … man-made and natural! What a complete joke and fallacy, kinda similar to Lisa representing Alaska and Alaskans best interest.
It is pretty easy to extrapolate the government’s handing of these birds to how they would handle weather control. There’s plenty of people in academia getting paid to think about weather control and climate change. If you think the owl problem discussed here is a joke, you won’t be laughing at some of ridiculous proposals to control the weather.
The US Fish and Wildlife is famous for over reacting and trying to create a problem when their is none. Protect the polar bear and kill the Owls. What next? In Florida it was protect the alligators and there was suppose to only 10 K left. Now they number in a few million. How about the introduced boas? Can’t figure that out yet but no worries, they will think of something to add to the endangered species list.