New billboards featuring two cuddling barred owls are going up around Portland, but their message is anything but warm and fuzzy.
The billboards, including seven in the Portland area and one in Eugene, are part of a new campaign launched by animal welfare groups opposed to a federal agency’s plan to kill nearly half a million barred owls along the West Coast. Similar billboards have also gone up in California, Idaho and Washington.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, supported by timber interests and some conservation groups, launched the plan this spring with the aim of protecting the threatened northern spotted owl from competition with barred owls, considered an invasive species in Oregon…