Barred Owl Management Strategy; Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement; Washington, Oregon, and California

We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), are developing a proposed barred owl management strategy (management strategy) to address the threat of the nonnative, invasive barred owl (Strix varia) to the native northern and California spotted owls (Strix occidentalis). Implementation of the management strategy would require the take of barred owls, which is prohibited under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) unless authorized by a permit or regulation. We provide this notice to announce our intent to prepare an environmental impact statement to evaluate the impacts on the human environment related to the proposed management strategy and associated MBTA take authorization. In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, we are opening a public scoping comment period to help determine the scope of issues for analysis and announcing a virtual public scoping meeting.