Silly doesn’t even come close to describing the latest round in the battle of northern spotted owl v. barred owl. Now Friends of Wildlife is suing the U.S. Department of Interior and others over the plan to kill or move more than 3,000 of the latter in an attempt to assure the health of the former.

Oregonians have been acutely aware of the northern spotted owl since at least 1990, when it was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The owl, which is a resident of old-growth timber stands, had seen large tracts of its habitat destroyed during the heyday of the Pacific Northwest’s timber industry.

Yet even with the Northwest’s timber harvest down some 90 percent since the listing, the spotted owl’s numbers continue to decline. One reason: They’re being driven out by their bigger, more aggressive cousin, the barred owl.

Thus the plan to kill or move barred owls.

Friends of Wildlife argues that the plan is illegal. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits such actions, it says, unless they benefit the species being killed.

If the current barred owl plan is upheld in court, it won’t be the first time the government has removed one species to save another. More than 40 golden eagles were moved between 2000 and 2006 in an attempt to save the California Channel Islands’ island fox, and at least 5,000 feral — as distinguished from wild — pigs have been killed on Santa Cruz Island for the same reason. If it’s any comfort to eagle lovers, since they’ve been gone, the island fox has rebounded dramatically.

We don’t know if getting barred owls out of the way will mean new life for the nearly identical spotted owl, and, unfortunately, neither does the government. What might work is selective breeding of spotted owls to improve their viability. They could be bred to be more aggressive and less persnickety about what they eat.

Nature already did that, though. It’s a barred owl.