Make this call in the wild: Should Oregon shoot barred owls to save spotted owls?

Nothing's worked. Not the clamp on federal timber sales that hammered Oregon's mill towns. Not the lawsuits or the listing as an endangered species. The belated work to retain and restore its favored old-growth habitat will take decades to unfold. Twenty plus years of trying to save the northern spotted owl and it's still slipping away.

Come summer, federal wildlife officials expect to finish a draft environmental impact statement that most likely recommends taking to the woods with shotguns. Over the next year, in three or more study areas from Washington to northern California, they might kill 1,200 to 1,500 barred owls -- the larger, more aggressive competitor that has routed spotted owls from much of their territory and become, along with habitat loss, the biggest threat to their survival.

It's a wrenching decision that splits wildlife biologists and environmentalists. Killing one native animal to benefit another -- especially a "big, beautiful raptor, a fantastic bird," as one biologist puts it -- is such a leap that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hired an environmental ethicist to guide its discussions.

"There's no winner in that debate," says Bob Sallinger, conservation director with the Portland Audubon Society.