The US Senate rejected an effort on Wednesday to halt a contentious US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) plan to kill nearly half a million barred owls in order to save their cousin, the northern spotted owl.

John Kennedy, the Republican senator from Louisiana, had hoped to block the proposal by bringing the matter to a vote with a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act. The effort failed with 25 votes to 72 votes.

“The barred owls are not hurting anybody. They’re just doing what nature teaches them to do. We’re going to change nature?” Kennedy said in a speech before the Senate. “We’re going to control our environment to this extent? We’re going to pass DEI for owls?”

Barred owls have been expanding their habitat west, increasing competition for the spotted owl. The more aggressive barred owls come from eastern North America and are slightly larger and better able to adapt than the spotted owl. The spotted owl has been imperiled over the years, facing major habitat loss as logging and development destroyed old growth forests in the Pacific north-west.

The USFWS introduced the controversial plan to cull as many as 450,000 of the raptors in designated areas in the Pacific north-west during Joe Biden’s administration, arguing that barred owls pose a “significant threat” to the survival of the spotted owl. Under that management strategy, two trained individuals must positively identify barred owls and “removal specialists” will shoot the animals.

Experts acknowledged it created an “ethical dilemma” and animal welfare and conservation groups were at odds over the issue. In 2024, more than 80 US animal welfare groups called the plan “colossally reckless”. Some Republicans became prominent critics as well arguing it was wrong and costly.

The issues highlighted a rare split between the Trump administration and some Republicans. Officials had urged Kennedy and other Republicans to back the plan, which recently garnered support from the logging industry. Kennedy described it as a “misguided attempt” to protect the spotted owl and said of the interior department officials: “Who appointed them God?”

During his remarks on the floor, the senator said he recently received a call from the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, who urged him not to move forward with the resolution and said he was “slandering” the administration.

“I told him he was confused. He had the wrong person. The secretary needed to call somebody who cared what he thought,” Kennedy said. “I think he’s wrong. I think he and the other members of the administrative department of interior decided to play God.”

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Oregon’s senators, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, issued a joint statement in support of the USFWS plan.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service’s plan was developed after a decade of research, consideration of alternatives to manage the non-native and invasive barred owls, and consultation and partnership with tribes,” the statement said.