@chaski Said
Hitch hiking is a natural phenomena.
Animals have been doing it for millions of years... hitch a ride on a piece of flotsam an move down river or across an ocean...
Or hitch a ride on an animals fur, mud on a bird's foot, seeds on a shoe...
Follow migrating herds from one area to another...
Insects do it, rats do it, cats & dogs do it, birds... humans....
This, ultimately is what the owls have done hitched a ride with humans by way of following the human herd's migration.
Survival of the fittest is a tough game.
The adaptable generalists are the one's who win this game... but it is a natural game that has been at play since life was formed/created/introduced to planet earth.
In Florida "we" learned the hard way...
A) Be careful what "you" introduce (or allow to hitch hike) to the ecosystem, and
B) Be even more careful how "you" try to correct the problem... often the "correction" is at least as bad as the problem (i.e. human introduced invasive species), and often far far worse.
Yes, that's what's lingering in the back of my mind. Let nature take it's coarse. Yes, we may affect it (migrations, "hitch hiking" ), but we shouldn't kill it - excessive logging, mining, fracking ...
As was not mentioned in the article in so many words, we over-fish salmon, but to keep the population viable we kill seals (our competition)
And to point B) Aren't the wolves in the northern plains an example of that? I thought I've heard that the re-introduction was more "successful" than planed in some places.
(and a quantum entanglement from nature to politics, is the middle east. who's trying to pick the winners?)