This week, contractors working for the state of Oregon started shooting barred owls in the Elliott State Research Forest near Coos Bay. As many as 350 of these birds could be killed there over the coming year. The Oregon Department of State Lands approved the program, and it has the power to stop it.

The stated goal is to help the northern spotted owl, a threatened native bird that keeps losing ground to the bigger, more aggressive barred owl. Saving the spotted owl matters. But the Elliott shootings are one piece of a far larger plan from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which allows close to half a million barred owls to be killed across Oregon, Washington and California.

"The largest raptor slaughter that any government has ever contemplated," is how Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, described the federal plan, according to OPB. He has also warned that spotted owls could be shot by mistake, since the two species look so alike.

Concern about the plan crosses party lines. Bipartisan groups of state lawmakers in Oregon have challenged it, and so have members of Congress from California and Texas.

Oregon expects to spend about $15,000 a month for the first 16 months, then roughly $6,000 a month after that. Only three spotted owls showed up in the forest's latest survey, and the forest's own biologist says success would mean simply holding at three or more after 15 years.

Spotted owls need real help, starting with protection for the old-growth forests where they nest. They don't need a solution that depends on killing hundreds of other owls in a public forest.

Sign the petition to urge the Oregon Department of State Lands to stop shooting barred owls in the Elliott State Research Forest before hundreds more are killed.