Talk:Spotted owl

Faulty Correlation Under 'Relations With Tribes'
The story of the Cherokee legend is inapplicable to this topic because the Cherokee (a Southeast American tribe) would have never had contact with the Northern Spotted Owl because it is restricted to the American Pacific Northwest. I suggest the complete removal of the legend. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua G. Smith (talk • contribs) 04:28, 3 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Wrong talk page; this relates to Northern spotted owl. However, the point is correct, and that paragraph has no business being in the articel anyway. I have removed it.-- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:27, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposed Merge
The Northern Spotted Owl is a subspecies of the Spotted Owl. Seperate entries are appropriate if the content makes the distinctions clear.
 * Support. Spotted Owl proper page has very little unique content. Dysmorodrepanis 04:24, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep; I will add some more (mainly trivial, but nonetheless) info on the species in general in the next 2-3 weeks. Dysmorodrepanis 06:36, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with a Keep - the spotted owl is distinctive in the minds of readers, despite perhaps not being hugely different from the standpoint of science. People became aware of the species via the logging / endangered species issue. Heck, from the standpoint of people's awareness of the owl, you could argue to move the parent topic into *this* article :P Dxco 02:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Removed merge template
The Northern Spotted Owl is a distinct subspecies of the Spotted Owl and merits a separate article. See Myrtle Warbler and Audubon's Warbler which are subspecies of the Yellow-rumped Warbler. Also the Northern Spotted Owl is still listed by the as an endangered species by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service while some of the other Spotted Owls are not. --Droll 07:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality
The "controversy" section this month has a strong bias against the lumber industry and against opponents of spotted owl protection. I am not an expert on the matter, so I am not in a position to clean up the section, but I would suggest that someone familiar with the controversy should update the section to reflect the views of old-growth logging proponents in a more balanced manner. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Poshua (talk • contribs) 23:05 24 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with this assessment. I found a section-specific POV template and moved it down to the section. I might try to improve it as I have time. If anyone has sources that can be used, listing them here would be helpful. Burlywood 14:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I reworked the section. How is it now? I somewhat over-referenced the section so I (or others) can go back to the sources should anyone suggest the section needs more work. Burlywood 00:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If there are no objections, I propose moving that whole section to Northern Spotted Owl and remove the POV tag. Burlywood 20:10, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is incredibly pro-Spotted Owl. I'd like to see a section with some criticism of the owls. Right now it looks like a whitewash. KenFehling (talk) 00:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, that's rich. "I'd like to see... some criticism of the owls". Oh yeah, let's criticize those little bastards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.124.216.202 (talk • contribs) 01:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's bothered by the pro-owl bias here on Wikipedia. KenFehling (talk) 18:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Those darn owls--damn them! Don`t they know any better?. Seriously, this page needs to be semi-protected (only established users can edit). It is a target for vandalism. Jack B108 (talk) 05:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, I don`t even know if semi-protection will help here. Sorry, I just looked at the Edit history more closely: pretty nasty. Jack B108 (talk) 05:41, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm impressed. There's more information here about this owl than there is for schizophrenia.

Sparred owl
Now redirects here. Notes on the hybrid could be included in this article. Shyamal 06:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC) SCERW THE BIRDS!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.25.35.52 (talk) 18:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Conservation Status
I just updated the IUCN3.1 conservation status from VU to NT to match the entry on the Red List. Strix occidentalis (Spotted Owl) Status: Near Threatened    ver 3.1 Pop. trend: decreasing Citation: IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4. . Downloaded on 10 February 2011. Are people confusing the USFWS threatened listing for Northern and Mexican subspecies with IUCN status? Kevin Purcell (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

While factually accurate, I find it deceiving to state that the spotted owl is currently classified as a near-threatened species, while the representative photo is a northern spotted owl, which is endangered in BC and threatened in California. I have no resolution to propose at this time.

"Typically"
The word "typical" and its variations is used 26 times in this article. Just putting that out there. - Sweet Nightmares  16:23, 21 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Typical. I removed or reworded many of these.  Dger (talk) 17:22, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Excessive detail
The sections on habitat are far too detailed. They may, in fact have been copied verbatim from US government sources (which are public domain). The detailed survey of nest elevations throughout the range is appropriate for a specialist publication, but isn't of interest to a general reader, and in fact makes it more difficult for the casual reader to extract useful information from the article. I suggest that these sections be significantly pruned. Pburka (talk) 15:49, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Copied Material
I was also going to note that a lot of material is simply copied verbatim with footnotes from http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/animals/bird/stoc/all.html. Just a pure text dump. Danpetitpas (talk) 17:53, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Massive condensing
I've just finished an overhaul of the article, which mostly consisted of trying to summarize the massive copy-paste from the US Forest Service site. While that material is all in the public domain and thus perfectly fine to use, this article is not intended to be a mirror of it, nor the definite monograph on spotted owls that covers all minutiae. There's a wealth of information on that site, and anyone wanting to increase coverage in the article of any particular facet will probably have to look no further for sources; but dumping it ALL into the article is not indicated.

Most of that concerned the sections now found under 'Habitat', 'Ecology' and 'Diet'. I've kept individual refs where the main points were traceable to a few such, otherwise I've sourced the summary to the USFS site, which has exhaustive refs for every statement. The 'Conservation' section seems homegrown and I haven't touched it beyond a few copyedits.-- Elmidae  10:28, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Additions to Conservation
I've added some information regarding some new conservation efforts. The study hasn't been published yet but general findings have been reported through a news source. I also added that a study found that barred owls are one of the primary causes of decline in spotted owl populations. Ctran24 (talk) 00:37, 1 March 2016 (UTC)