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Connect with other curious people to think deeply about issues that matter.

Here from Katanji Brown Jackson, Pete Budajajed, Anna Devir Smith, and more.

Tickets are available at the Atlantic Festival.com. dot com. That is the call of the Northern Spotted Owl. And this is the call of the Bard Owl. The two species are close relatives. The medium-sized dark brown northern

spotted owl being smaller than its larger and more aggressive cousin, the Bard Owl.

But the most critical difference between the two is that in the forests of the Pacific

Northwest, the Spotted Owl is considered a native species.

The Bard Owl is considered an invasive from the eastern U.S.

The Spotted Owl is also a listed threatened species,

and the successful spread of and competition from the Bard Owl

is one of the factors pushing the Spotted Owl closer to extinction.

Now the two raptors are at the center

of a controversial federal plan

that raises questions about the entire philosophy

behind traditional models of conservation and even the goals of the Endangered Species Act.

Put simply, how many hundreds of thousands of one species can be justifiably killed to preserve another.

And what exactly is it that we're trying to save. This is on point.

I'm Magna Chakrabardi.

To understand the importance of the current debate over spotted owl conservation and

forest management, we have to first go back about 50 years before the invasive barred owl

was firmly established in the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

...