Not an ornithologist, but am a biologist/ecologist. Carrying capacity: A population rises to an area's carrying capacity, i.e, as long as there are sufficient resources available, barred owls will continue moving in.
Will hunting delay demise of the spotted owls? Yes.
But will it stop it? No.
Hunting barred owls MAY be partial answer to the problem, but there has to be more to the plan than that.
Man that’s tough… are there ways of returning the massive forest desert that was the Great Plains?
Or has homesteading and growth if bridge forest from cessation of prescribed burns…
Burned that bridge forever?