A federal government plan for hunters to kill thousands of invasive owls to protect the rapidly declining northern spotted owl has ruffled the feathers of dozens of animal advocacy groups.

On Monday, a coalition of 75 animal rights and wildlife protection organizations sent a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland asking her to scrap what they describe as a “reckless plan” to wipe out half a million barred owls in West Coast states over the next three decades.

The letter, spearheaded by the Animal Wellness Action group and the Center for a Humane Economy, lambastes the plan for being unworkable and short-sighted, arguing that it will lead to the wrong owls being shot and disruption to nesting behavior.

“Implementing a decades-long plan to unleash untold numbers of ‘hunters’ in sensitive forest ecosystems is a case of single-species myopia regarding wildlife control,” states the letter, signed by Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, and Scott Edwards, general counsel for the Center for a Humane Economy.

Federal wildlife officials believe the action is necessary to control the population of the barred owl — which they consider invasive — and give the threatened northern spotted owls a fighting chance on their home turf.

The proposal is also intended to prevent declines of the California spotted owl, which wildlife officials say is also facing encroachment from the larger, more aggressive barred owl in the Sierra Nevada.

“Extirpation of northern spotted owls from major portions of their historical range is likely in the near future without management of barred owls,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrote in its proposal, citing a recent demographic analysis.

Barred owls and northern spotted owls are closely related and can even interbreed. But the barred owls, which originally hailed from the eastern U.S., have been described as its relative’s “nemesis.”

The barred owl is more of a generalist, eating a wider array of food and occupying a broader habitat.

The northern spotted owl is pickier — and smaller. Its range stretches from northwestern California to southwestern British Columbia, including western Oregon and Washington, according to the National Wildlife Foundation.

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