The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has proposed killing hundreds of thousands of barred owls over the next 30 years in an effort to protect the endangered northern spotted owl, which competes with the barred owl for food, habitat and other resources. The agency published a final environmental impact statement last month, and a decision on whether to adopt the strategy could be imminent. 

A group of philosophers at Oregon universities recently took issue with the proposal. In a New York Times opinion piece, they described the strategy and the reasoning behind it as “dystopian” and “deeply problematic.”

Jay Odenbaugh is the James F. Miller Professor of Humanities at Lewis & Clark College. He co-authored the article and joins us to talk about the ethical pitfalls of sacrificing one species for another.