Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Californian CESU

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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research on the impacts of non-native barred owls (Strix varia) on sensitive wildlife in the Pacific Northwest. Barred owls have expanded their geographic range from eastern to western North America, and now occur at high densities in older forests of the Pacific Northwest. As an apex predator and fiercely territorial invader, barred owls have the potential to affect a wide variety of native wildlife through predation, resource competition, and displacement. In particular, the range expansion by barred owls has resulted in pronounced negative effects on populations of the federally threatened northern spotted owl (S. occidentalis caurina). Identifying and minimizing the potentially negative effects of this encroaching predator to sensitive native wildlife have become high research priorities to land managers throughout the Pacific Northwest.

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