To save the spotted owl, U.S. officials plan to kill hundreds of thousands of another owl species

To save the endangered spotted owl from extinction, U.S. conservationists are embracing a controversial plan to deploy trained marksmen into dense West Coast forests to kill nearly half a million spotted owls that are crowding out their own kind.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's strategy released Wednesday aims to bolster declining spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington state and California, The Associated Press obtained advance details.

Documents released by the agency show that about 450,000 barred owls were shot over the past three decades after the birds from the eastern U.S. invaded the West Coast territories of two owl ...