One Of The Big Stories In The Mid-Nineties That ...

One of the big stories in the mid-nineties that you may recall being on all the TV news broadcasts was the concern for a dying species of owl in the Northwest called the Spotted Owl. The concern was that the logging being done in the area was actually destroying the species. But according to a Newsweek article published in November of 1996, research showed that the owl’s greatest enemy was not coming from the loggers but somewhere else. For the past fifteen years, the barred owl has migrated westward rapidly. Barred owls, which used to live exclusively east of the Mississippi, compete for the same food as spotted owls but are more aggressive and adaptable. The great enemy of the spotted owl did not in fact come from without–i.e. the logging industry–but was actually from within–a similar species competing for the same area.