In Jun. 2011， American wildlife officials released a controversial new plan to protect the spotted owls: eliminating their cousins. In the past 20 years， much has been done to bring the spotted owls back， but they are still on the decline.

Spotted owls became famous in the 1990s， when the government set aside millions of acres of forest to protect them. But they haven’t come back. Biologists believe that’s due to an invasion of barred owls.

Barred owls take over spotted owls’ territory and in some cases even attack them. They have an advantage because they eat a wider variety of prey. In places like western Washington， the spotted owl population has been cut in half since the barred owl showed up.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to deal with this by ‘permanent removal’，” said a biologist. “We’re going to look at all potential opportunities， but the most humane way to do it is to shoot them.”

Of course， shooting the barred owls would cause a storm of controversy.

Eric Forsman， a wildlife biologist， said shooting owls wasn’t a long-term solution. “I think all we can really do is try our best to provide a habitat for spotted owls and in the long run， we’re just going to have to let the two species work it out，” he said.

What do the underlined words “eliminating their cousins” in Paragraph 1 mean? （Find the KEY in this issue）

controversial有爭議的

spotted owl 斑點貓頭鷹

decline下降

acre英畝

invasion 入侵

barred owl斑鸮

territory 領(lǐng)地

prey 獵物

The Fish and Wildlife Service

美國魚類及野生動物保護局

habitat棲息地