American owl cull - immoral or a necessary evil?

The US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to kill 470,000 owls, and conservation organizations are at each other's throats over it.

The department has reluctantly concluded that they need to cull nearly half a million barred owls from California, Oregon and Washington over a span of some three decades. This is because the native northern spotted owl is becoming increasingly endangered in the region, partly because of human-driven habitat destruction (mainly logging activities), but partly because the barred owls - originally native to the Eastern United States, and NOT endangered - are much more adaptable and are moving into traditional northern spotted territory in the West.

Critics of the proposal argue that the plan is impractical, reckless and ethically questionable. But without it, the northern spotted owl may well go extinct. So, what to do? Well we could maybe stop the logging of old growth forest for starters, no?