This article starts with an ideological objective (in principle, we object to killing owls, here’s an impassioned appeal to your heartstrings about how horrible that is) and then cites some research to build a case for the existing ideological conclusion (here’s some links to some studies).

And I get, that from a radical animal rights perspective, culls of any kind can be problematic. But as someone who’s done a bunch of volunteer work helping manage invasive species, I have a feeling the authors might not object to me spending my time cutting down Russian olives on the Colorado front range, or weeding out invasive Chinese grasses in San Francisco Bay estuaries (both things I have spent many hours of my life doing). IDK how they would feel about me killing and eating Louisiana bullfrogs in California streams and ponds (but those assholes are only there because humans brought them there, and they’re eating a dozen native frog species to extinction).

In this particular case, the only reason the barred owls were able to spread from the Northeast the way they did is because humans transformed the Great Plains into an environment they could live in (they need high perches for nesting and sleeping, they didn’t have that until European descended humans started planting trees and building buildings).

Spotted owls aren’t the only species of owl that barred owls compete with and kill (they also target ground nesting owls, and will happily eat great horned chicks as well).

You can make a radical animal rights argument that “killing owls is horrible full stop.” I don’t want to stop you from making that argument, but I don’t agree with it on that sole basis and I do want to provide a counterpoint to it. I love hearing the great horned owls hooting outside my house at night and if some screechy asshole barred owl is killing their chicks, I will personally shoot that motherfucker and sleep like a baby.

You can correctly argue that human industrial society (and the kind of decision making based in capitalism and the profit motive) is causing all kinds of really bad problems. I 100% agree with that assessment, but I don’t think “and therefore we shouldn’t kill owls” necessarily follows. I agree that we should encourage ecology to self-heal, but informed management of the damage we’re causing is also a worthy goal.