Harry Potter blamed for India's declining owl population

Wed, 03 Nov 2010

New Delhi - India's environment minister has linked the popularity of boy wizard Harry Potter to the widespread illegal trade in owls that threatens the birds in the country, news reports said Wednesday.

Jairam Ramesh said there was a "strange fascination" among the affluent classes in India with giving owls to their children, inspired by the Harry Potter films and books that feature his feathered companion Hedwig, an IANS news agency report said.

The minister, who published a report on the country's owl population late Tuesday, said there had been an increase in people wanting to buy the owls from illegal bird traders.

The findings were also revealed in the report Imperilled Custodians of the Night written by the conservation group Traffic.

The report's author, Abrar Ahmed, said he decided to investigate the owl trade after a friend's wife asked him to obtain a live white-colored owl for her son's Harry Potter-themed birthday party.

"This was probably one of the strangest demands made to me as an ornithologist," Ahmed said in the report.

The report said a growing number of India's owls were being killed in sacrifices during black magic rituals as well as for medicinal purposes.

It revealed that as many as half of the 30 species of owls in India were being caught and sold alive in markets, and recommended stricter monitoring and control on the bird trade particularly during Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, that starts Friday.

The study said the sales of owls peak during the Diwali festival, when their "darshan" (sacred view) and sacrifice are believed to bring wealth to the household.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/351645,indias-declining-owl-population.html.

Scientists find new owl subspecies in Yosemite

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

By The Associated Press

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) - Scientists say new research shows owls flying in Yosemite are a distinct subspecies of the great gray owls found in North America.

A new study written by scientists at the U.S. Forest Service and other state and federal agencies shows the Yosemite owl has key genetic differences from the emblematic bird.

Wildlife ecologists believe it likely evolved in isolation for more than 25,000 years after being stranded by ice fields and glaciers during the last Ice Age.

The research group also found the Yosemite owl nests slightly differently from other great gray owls.

Rangers say there only are about 150 great grays living in the park's lush forests and surrounding private lands. But overall, more than half of California's great gray owls are found in the Yosemite region.

Source: Madera Tribune.
Link: http://www.maderatribune.com/news/newsview.asp?c=256101.

Owl City: Mountain View's tiny burrowing owls are in the way of proposed sports fields

By Diana Samuels

They're about 9 inches tall, with big eyes and toothpick legs, and just a few of them are left in Mountain View.

But despite their small size and population, the city's remaining Western burrowing owls have sometimes loomed large over development along Mountain View's bayfront. Now, the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society is calling on Mountain View to change its plans to build athletic fields at Shoreline Regional Park, in a space where the owls forage for food.

The owls eat insects and small rodents, and live in ground burrows typically made by squirrels. They're found throughout western North America, but their numbers declined almost 60 percent in California between the 1980s and early 1990s, according to the Audubon Society. The California Department of Fish and Game has designated the burrowing owl a "species of special concern." There are fewer than 40 nesting pairs left in Santa Clara County, said Shani Kleinhaus, environmental advocate for the Audubon Society, and they are "in jeopardy and in dire straits everywhere in the Bay Area."

In the county, they're gone from cities including Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, Kleinhaus said, but can sometimes be found at places including the San Jose International Airport, Moffett Field in Mountain View, and Mission College in Santa Clara. At Shoreline, city Assistant Public Works Director Mike Fuller said they had four nesting pairs last year.

The city has worked to protect the owls for decades, hiring a city biologist who carefully monitors the species, Fuller said. They've built manmade burrows to encourage owls to stay, and keep the vegetation short to make finding food easier.

But now, wildlife lovers are objecting to the city's plans for long-awaited athletic fields on 12 acres in the southwest corner of Shoreline Park, at the closed landfill between the golf course and Garcia Avenue. Kleinhaus and Bob Power, executive director for the Audubon Society, wrote a guest opinion column in the Mountain View Voice last week calling for the city to create a burrowing owl preserve at Shoreline. They've also started a petition, which had about 150 signatures as of Tuesday, Kleinhaus said.

"As time goes by, we see more and more projects coming up, and more and more owls lose their home," Kleinhaus said.

The athletic fields are in the early stages of design, but have been long-desired by local residents. The city began developing a plan in 2003 to find sites for more athletic fields, and ultimately, this September hired a contractor to design a facility at Shoreline.

"There just aren't a lot of sites available," Fuller said. "Mountain View's built out."

When the project is further along, the city will have to do a full environmental analysis, Fuller said. In the meantime, officials are looking at a few options to fulfill legal requirements for handling the owls: set aside additional land at Shoreline for the owls and enhance foraging sites there, spend $250,000 to $500,000 to buy "mitigation credits" that help owls at a wildlife conservation land bank in the East Bay, or a combination of the two.

Money used to buy mitigation credits would go to create and maintain a burrowing owl habitat at Haera Wildlife Conservation Bank in Alameda County. Jeff Mathews, director of sales and marketing for Wildlands, Inc., the company that runs the land bank, described it as a "passive relocation" — they use the money to create and maintain the most suitable habitat for owls, and eventually, the owls show up. Mathews said, depending on the year, they have seen as few as six pairs of owls or as many as 15 to 20 at Haera's 300-acre site, which also provides a habitat for kit foxes.

The city used the mitigation approach last time the owls stood in the way of a development, in early 2008 when Google planned to build a hotel on the "Charleston East" site. The city paid $150,000 to buy 9.75 acres at Haera after it found a family of owls living there at Charleston East.

Those owls' homes were blocked so they couldn't return, Kleinhaus said. The Google deal fell through and a hotel has not been built yet, but the city keeps the site plowed so squirrels don't create more burrows.

Chris Nagano, an endangered species division chief with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife's Sacramento office, said the concept of land bank mitigation has become very popular with cities and developers over the past five years. Though he couldn't speak specifically to burrowing owls, he said land banks are effective in helping species, especially when a city is looking at a small site that would be expensive to replace in a developed area.

"If done correctly, (land banks) can protect large amounts of habitats for species," Nagano said.

Kleinhaus said the concept of mitigation doesn't work for owls: the city isn't physically moving those specific owls to a new home. They're simply assuming that they will find somewhere else to live, and more owls will reproduce in Alameda to make up for them. Burrowing owls tend to show "strong fidelity" to their nest sites, remaining in the same area for years, according to California Department of Fish and Game documents.

As they disappear from Santa Clara County, Kleinhaus said, they're difficult to bring back.

"They've been mitigated to death," she said.

There used to be burrowing owls in Palo Alto's Byxbee Park Hills and Baylands. But Palo Alto Naturalist Annette Coleman said she could only recall one recent sighting, about 2½ years ago by the city's refuse center. The city tried to create some artificial burrows at Byxbee to attract more owls, but Coleman said people initially used the mounds as bike jumps and the owls never appeared.

The owls at Shoreline, though, can be saved with some effort, Kleinhaus said.

"There's nowhere you can go and have a little bit of nature anymore," she said. "I think people need that."

The city and Audubon Society representatives have scheduled a meeting next week to discuss the project, Fuller said.

"I understand their concerns and we look forward to sharing information and working with them," Fuller said. "Hopefully we can accomplish council's goals of establishing athletics fields, and (the Audubon Society's) goals of not disturbing the owls."

Injured owl seems to know where to go for aid

By Rex Springston

RICHMOND, VA -- In case you needed further proof that owls are wise, an injured one made its way to a federal wildlife office in eastern Henrico County.

The great horned owl, appearing stunned, was found Sunday about 10:30 a.m. crouching on the sidewalk in front of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in the 5700 block of South Laburnum Avenue.

"It was like he came to the wildlife people for help," said Sally Davis, owner of Tri-City Florist next to the wildlife office. Her husband, George, first saw the bird, and an animal-control officer took it away.

A doctor at Hanover Green Veterinary Clinic in Mechanicsville checked out the owl, which had a bump on its head and appeared confused but did not require surgery.

The bird now is under the care of a wildlife rehabilitator and will get some rest before it is released.

The bird should be released soon, said Dan Rolince, resident agent in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service law-enforcement region that includes this area. The bird turned up in front of his office.

Rolince said it's possible the owl got hurt in traffic or flew into a window or other object. Rolince said he doubted someone would care enough to take the bird to the office and then abandon it there.

The wildlife service office, incidentally, is in the Byrd Center business park.

State Park visitors participate in effort to catch, band owls

BY JANNA ODENTHAL, POST-TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENT

Huge, round, yellow eyes pierced the darkened room. Some onlookers gasped, others sighed, as photos of a northern saw-whet owl were projected onto a large screen at the Indiana Dunes Nature Center.

A group gathered there recently for a free public program about owl banding.

Brad Bumgardner, the state park's interpretive naturalist, explained that out of 20 types of owls in the United States, only eight live in Indiana. He walked around the room with a stuffed, mounted northern saw-whet owl to give the group a closer view.

The smallest native owl, adult northern saw-whet owls are about the size of a human fist. This tiny bird hides in white cedar swamps and feasts on small mammals throughout the summer. Coniferous forests provide safe breeding grounds.

Banding the owls helps naturalists learn more about them, Bumgardner said. He explained the process of determining the bird's age, weight and sex, tracking migratory patterns and more.

"One of the things I like about this is that it's educational, it's research and it's fun, too," Bumgardner said.

A recent evening of light winds, clear skies and cold air created an ideal setting for catching the nocturnal animal. Participants drove to the park's Tremont shelter. They hiked through the darkened woods, trampling through mud, leaves and sticks, in hopes of finding the elusive owl and to check on nets set to catch it.

A homemade device, OWL-E, consisted of an MP3 player attached to a 400-watt amplifier hooked up to a car battery. It lures the owls into 36-foot-wide, 18-foot-high nets with pockets that gently catch and hold the birds.

Tim Stoltz, 15, of Valparaiso said he liked walking through the woods.

"I never heard of owl banding. It's pretty cool," he said. "The net was big, and you couldn't see it at night."

Between net checks, the group returned to the Nature Center to look for other species of night flyers. Bumgardner attracted an eastern screech owl to a nearby tree. He also discussed other varieties of owls and mimicked their calls, using his voice.

Individuals were encouraged to participate in the adopt-an-owl program, which gives a certificate, a picture of the owl, the band number, a matching band and e-mail updates about the owl.

Sara Wilmsen, 15, of Chesterton, volunteered to help with future owl banding.

"This summer was my first time helping with bird banding. It would be fun to do the banding my entire life," she said. "I just like getting real close to something that most people don't."

Wildlife group combines owl release, fundraiser in Loomis

By Sam Stanton

The effort started out six months ago, when the pair were nothing more than little fluff balls, tiny orphaned owls maybe a month old each.

They were nurtured and protected, taught to catch mice, shown how owls carry themselves and what sounds they make.

And on a beautiful Saturday night in Loomis, the two great horned owls went home, back to the wild as part of an ongoing effort by Sacramento's Wildlife Care Association.

In a grassy area near a parking lot, they were coaxed one at a time from their cardboard pet carriers and took flight to the appreciative claps of two dozen onlookers.

The release of the owls came after an evening of presentations about wildlife and dinner at the Loomis Flower Farm Inn, where the association held what it hopes will become an annual event that serves as a fundraiser and release of rehabilitated wildlife.

The nonprofit group takes in as many as 7,000 orphaned and injured wild animals each year, with volunteers nursing them back to health and working to release them back into the wild.

The group's volunteers will take in birds, squirrels, possums, raccoons and other wildlife.

"We take in everything except mountain lions, bears and deer," said Debbie Duvall, an 18-year veteran of the group who served as foster mom for the two owls.

Duvall was in charge of taking care of the two baby owls while making certain that human interaction with them was limited.

She had a little help from Nala, an adult great horned owl that came to the group 12 years ago. Nala has a broken wing and can no longer fly. The owl has settled in comfortably with Duvall, living with her and making regular visits to schools.

"We got her as an adult," Duvall said. "She was found hanging in barbed wire."

Nala also provided a critical service to the orphaned owls, "showing them owl body language, vocal sounds," and helping to teach them to hunt mice, Duvall said.

"She's very defensive of them," Duvall said.

Unlike Nala, the two owls released Saturday were not named, part of the effort to keep them from becoming "imprinted" by having too much human contact.

The hope is that the owls have learned enough to make it on their own in the wild, and Saturday night's event was the first time the group has used a release as a fundraiser.

The organization, which has existed since 1974, hopes to conduct annual fundraising dinners like this one, and there clearly will be no shortage of rehabilitated animals.

If the event turns into an annual dinner, chances are Nala will be around. She is believed to be 15 or 20, and great horned owls can live to be about 35, Duvall said.

She said there are about 30 volunteers who have been trained to rehabilitate rescued wild animals.

"Anybody can do it, as long as they go through the training," she said.

Yorkshire owl project success

They might be known as barn owls, but they are equally at home in nesting boxes.

Barn owls are so happy with their new riverside accommodation in West and South Yorkshire that they have now started producing families.

Nesting boxes for barn owls were set up at 16 points along the lower River Aire and River Don last year, and have proved very popular.

Thirteen of the boxes were used for roosting and nine of those for breeding in the 2009 nesting season. In all, seven families of owl chicks were successfully raised, a total of 20 chicks.

The project depends on careful management of river banks by the Environment Agency and the support and co-operation of landowners, to reduce the amount of grass mowing.

Bear parts, owls seized

KUALA LUMPUR (Malaysia) - MALAYSIA police say they have seized more than US$100,000 (S$142, 500) worth of dead owls, bear paws and live monitor lizards and arrested two men on suspicion of trying to smuggle them abroad.

Mohamad Hassan Hashim, a marine police official in eastern Terengganu state, says two Malaysian men were caught Sunday loading the protected wildlife into a boat.

He says police found 33 sun bear parts, 264 dead owls and 4,800 live monitor lizards, worth some RM350,000 in all.

The lizards will be released into the wild.

Mr Mohamad Hassan said on Monday the men could face up to three years in prison if charged with and found guilty of possessing protected wild animals.

Predators key to sustainable farming

Barn owls have emerged as the unlikely heroes in the fight against climate change, saving Malaysian farmers more than money, UQ PhD Student Chong Leong Puan has found.

A student from UQ's School of Integrative Systems, Mr Puan examined predator behavior to determine the effectiveness of barn owls in rodent control on Malaysian palm oil plantations.

“Owl species that are associated with forest habitats are regarded as an indicator of forest health,” Mr Puan said.

“Many species remain high in the food chain and have an ecological role of maintaining ecosystems in a steady state.”

Mr Puan, a representative for the World Owl Trust, saw a need to research a more cost effective and environmentally friendly method of pest control.

“I spent 14 months on a palm oil plantation in Malaysia trapping rats, observing owl breeding conditions and collecting owl pellets,” he said.

Mr Puan found that high rodent levels correspond with increased owl fertility rates.

“There was a significant positive correlation between the relative abundance of rats captured and number of pellets collected during breeding months of the birds,” Mr Puan said.

He also found that biological controls can be used to overcome environmental problems associated with chemical pesticides, such as rodent resistance and secondary poisoning of non-target animals.

The cost efficiency of such biological controls are another reason to adopt the method in Malaysia, the world's second largest palm oil producer.

Annually, rodents cost the palm oil industry more than $32 million USD, with many plantations relying heavily on chemical control methods.

At a time when both the economy and the environment are struggling on the global stage, Mr Puan's findings pave the way for sustainable farming practices across the agricultural industry.

Barn owls making welcome return to Cheshire

Aug 3 2009

Chester Chronicle

THE number of barn owls in Cheshire has been steadily rising over the last 10 years, according to a conservation group.

Recorded breeding pairs increased from 61 in 2003 to a record 160 breeding pairs and 650 chicks in 2007. However, 2008 had only 59 successful breeding pairs.

The Mid Cheshire Barn Owl Conservation Group says current indications for 2009 are far more promising with over 100 breeding pairs anticipated.

Fluctuations are mainly due to the region’s variable weather and the breeding cycle of the barn owl’s main prey of small mammals.

Crowing over owls' return

Karst advocates say birds a good reason to protect more land

Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator
STONEY CREEK (Aug 1, 2009)

The presence of a breeding pair of long-eared owls in the Eramosa Karst Conservation Area -- the first seen in urban Hamilton in 40 years -- is being used to bolster arguments to expand the park to include 32 hectares the Ontario Realty Corp. wants to sell to builders.

Friends of Eramosa Karst say the city's new Official Plan designates the ORC land as part of a "core natural heritage area," but that's not enough to stop the provincial agency. They hope, however, to keep building a case against development, noting that the Hamilton Conservation Authority board agrees.

A news conference yesterday at which biologist Joe Minor announced finding a pair of long-eared owls -- and possibly owl chicks -- was used to argue that expanding the 73-hectare conservation area would protect wildlife habitat threatened by urban sprawl.

As if to emphasize the point, a Home Depot sign on Stone Church Road was easily visible from the conservation area parking lot on Mount Albion Road where Minor spoke. Rezoning and property sold signs sprout on vacant farmland down the road.

"Making the park 40 per cent bigger is absolutely huge from an island biogeography standpoint," Minor said. An island in biogeographical lingo is an area of suitable habitat surrounded by an expanse of unsuitable habitat.

"The number of species that will survive sprawl is increased greatly with size."

The Friends of Eramosa Karst calls the ORC property "karst feeder lands," saying water running through the property feeds underground karst features that include sinkholes, disappearing streams and caves.

It says stormwater ponds needed for residential growth would disrupt the natural flow.

Marcus Buck, who co-authored a report that led to the Eramosa Karst being provincially designated an Earth Sciences ANSI (an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest), said yesterday there are other karsts, but few with the number and variety of geological features found in upper Stoney Creek.

"Of the 26 streams here, 25 vanish into sinkholes. That's pretty remarkable. There's a lot more stuff here than at other karst sites."

Minor said some long-eared owls winter in the area, but they usually migrate north in summer. No nests have been found within 60 kilometres of Hamilton since the early 1990s.

A LOOK AT THE LONG-EARED OWL (ASIO OTUS)

A crow-sized owl with long ear tufts fitting the popular image of owls. An uncommon winter resident of the Hamilton area. Rare in summer.

Nests were found in Mount Albion pine groves from the late 1940s until 1968.

Owl pellets there contained remains of many meadow voles, one rabbit and the skull of a short-tailed shrew. Nests in the Bronte area of Oakville disappeared after being surrounded by sprawl in the 1960s.

UN to breed owls to combat rat scourge in Laos

By MICHAEL CASEY,AP Environmental Writer

BANGKOK, Thailand – When the rats descended in swarms and wiped out an entire season's rice harvest, hungry Lao villagers supplemented their diets by hunting barn owls, snakes and other wild animals.

But now, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization plans to persuade villagers that protecting the pale-faced owls is a much better way to ensure their food supply. The owls are natural predators of rats, and one can eat a dozen rodents in a day.

After traps failed and pesticides offered mixed results, the U.N. decided to breed the birds to end the rat scourge and educate villagers about their vital role in the ecosystem.

"Some people can joke about this, but it is a very good bird and can do a lot of good work," said Serge Verniau, the country representative in Laos for the U.N. agency, known by its acronym FAO.

"Some villagers eat the barn owls," he continued. "If they know the barn owl could be their ally to fight against the rodents, we are convinced they will change."

Verniau said the rodent outbreak first hit the farming communities last year after flowering bamboo _ which bloom every 50 years _ provided the rats with a plentiful food source. The rats wiped out much of the November harvest of rice, cassava and sesame, leaving families with little to eat in a country where hunger is already widespread. The rodents have destroyed crops in seven provinces in the country's north.

The World Food Program has stepped in, distributing 5,500 tons (5,000 metric tons ) of rice to affected communities. It estimates that the outbreak has left 130,000 people short of food in a country of more than 6 million people.

"People in some villages have lost everything. All their crops were destroyed last year. That is why there is an urgency for food assistance," Verniau said.

Elisabeth Faure, the food program's acting country director in Laos, said that the rat infestation is the sort of disaster _ along with floods _ that sends vulnerable families over the edge. Laos is one of the poorest countries in Asia, with one of two children under 5 in rural areas chronically malnourished and two-thirds of the population routinely facing food shortages, she said.

"When I went up to the north, farmers were telling stories of their rice huts shaking and a swarm of rats eating everything around them. It was like a sea of rats," Faure said. "Many people had lost absolutely everything. It is a big shock on a top of a bad situation."

In the government-run Vientiane Times, Lao Minister of Labor and Social Welfare Onchanh Thammavong acknowledged the outbreak Thursday and welcomed the international food assistance. She did not comment on the plan to use owls to address the problem, and another Lao official did not respond to a request for an interview.

Biologists acknowledge that meddling with ecosystems carries risks, especially when new species are introduced. The U.N.'s plan would appear to be less risky, though, because the barn owl is an established predator.

Elusive snowy owls congregating in Md.

Multiple sightings reported, a rarity for the area

By KELLEY L. ALLEN • The (Easton, Md.) Star Democrat

OXFORD, Md. -- It's been at least 24 years since the last irruption of snowy owls in Maryland and this year there are at least four on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

The region is lucky to see one snowy owl every four years or so. Bob Ringler, the editor of Maryland Bird Life, a Maryland Ornithological Society publication, has data on the owl's presence that goes back until at least 1876.

Ringler listed five sightings in Talbot County before this year -- one owl at Bailey's Neck in November 1974, one at Sherwood in November 1993, two at Poplar Island in 2001 and one at Poplar Island in November 2003.

"This is probably the first time in Oxford," he said.

The owl showed up Jan. 27 at the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory and has attracted birdwatchers from Virginia, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Delaware and one phone call from North Carolina, said Carol McCollough, a research pathologist at the lab.

"This is the first time [since I came to Maryland in 1985] that there's been multiple snowy owls in Maryland," David Brinker of the Wildlife and Heritage Service, Natural Heritage Program said. "This is pretty notable."

"They don't know what we are," Brinker said. "We're just curious things walking around that are too big for them to eat."

Snowy owls are sensitive to food supply and about every four years that supply crashes, which forces the birds south for food. Maryland usually gets one snowy owl in the winters of those irruptive years, and having four in the region is unusual.

The birds Brinker has seen in pictures are most likely teenage males that won't breed this spring. The two seen on Assateague Island, one on Poplar Island and the one in Oxford traveled farther than females, which are bigger and can hold territory better when food is scarce.

"They're essentially teenagers doing what college-aged kids do -- they wander around," Brinker said.

The Oxford owl has wandered about town, with sightings at Bachelor's Point, near Pier Street, by the Community Center and around the lab.

"He's quite loyal to the area, but not to any particular perch," McCollough said.

The owls are used to open habitats, water and coastal areas and like to eat lemmings at home on the arctic tundra, but will eat mammals, fish, birds and eggs.

The winter's first snowy owl came to Assateague about Nov. 10, then one came to Poplar Island, then a second to Assateague right before Christmas, then the one in Oxford. The birds will head back north this month as the weather warms up and the lengthening days cue them to head home.

Just the twoo of us: Meet Orbit the orphaned owl and his toy companion

By Claire Ellicott

In his five short weeks of life, Orbit hasn't met many other owls.

So he isn't at all worried that his new best friend doesn't hoot back.

The orphaned chick is perfectly content in the company of the stuffed bird perched next to him and is never far from his side.

Orbit, a common barn owl, was given the toy by Lyndsey Wood, his carer at Folly Farm, near Narberth in West Wales.

She said: 'A friend suggested that I find something like a toy owl to stop Orbit feeling lonely.

'I thought he might try to eat it, but he just cuddles up to it and goes to sleep.'

Short-eared owl

Asio flammeus

Though they're as much an owl as any other species, short-ears have some behavior not generally attributed to the family.

Short-eared owls commonly hunt during the first and last hours of daylight.

They also hunt while flying low and slowly and may roost on the grassy ground as often as in trees.

Short-eared owls seldom nest in Kansas, but are common winter migrations.

The birds have recently been seen in some grassy fields near northeast Wichita.

Like most owls, they largely prey on small mammals like mice and voles.

Snowy owls find home near airport runways

To a snowy owl, the runways looks like home: the tundra of northern Canada.

By TOM MEERSMAN, Star Tribune

With its almost-constant landings and takeoffs, you would think the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport would not attract birds, but to a snowy owl, the runways looks like home: the tundra of northern Canada.

The striking white raptors with huge yellow eyes are usually seen during in winter in northern Minnesota, but this year they have been spotted farther south and in greater numbers than usual. Two snowy owls have apparently staked their winter hunting claims at the airport.

"I've seen the bird 50 feet from a runway," said journalist and bird expert Jim Williams, who writes the Wingnut blog for StarTribune.com. "This huge jet plane comes down and it didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't fly away. It just seemed oblivious to a million pounds of roaring airplane."

Snowy owls are territorial and solitary at this time of year, he said. Because they patrol large areas, the chances of an owl-jet collision are virtually impossible.

Canadian reports have suggested that 2008 was a prolific breeding year for the owls, so the larger numbers flying farther south may be the result of population pressure and the need for juveniles to find new hunting grounds.

Snowy owls prefer lemmings, said Williams, but they'll settle for rabbits, mice, voles and other rodents that live in the open spaces between runways.

The one seen most frequently at the airport is white with lots of black markings and is probably a juvenile male. Adult males are pure white.

Julia Ponder, executive director at the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, said that her staff has treated nine snowy owls so far this winter, equal to the past three years combined. One with a wing fractured in three places is recuperating at the center after surgery. It was found Oct. 30 near a railroad track in Cottage Grove.

Snowy owls going hungry on P.E.I.

Driven south by a lack of food, there are about 10 times as many snowy owls as usual on P.E.I. this year, but they are not having much luck on the Island.

Wildlife officials estimate there are at least 20 snowy owls on the Island this year, compared to the usual one or two during the winter months. Some are running into trouble.

Dwaine Oakley of Holland College's Wildlife Conservation Technology program in Charlottetown and an avid birder, told CBC News Monday the spread of the birds throughout the southern part of eastern Canada appears to be the result of unfortunate timing in a crash of the owl's favorite food.

"There was an overabundance of young snowy owls this year because the lemming population was good during the breeding season," said Oakley.

"The owls correspond to that by having more young, but the problem is, they figure, the lemming population crashed later in the season. So you have a lot of young owls looking for a small amount of food."

Four snowy owls have been turned in to the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown this year. Having difficulty adjusting to southern hunting conditions, three died of starvation.

The fourth, dubbed Hedwig, came in with a broken wing. She was found in a field with a fox approaching her, but couldn't leave the ground.

Veterinarians put a pin in her wing, and she's been rehabilitating for three weeks.

"We have to catch her, and we have to gradually do the range of motion with her joint, and gently, gently stretching it," said Dr. Hans Gelens of AVC.

"It's very similar to people, except you can't explain what's going on. For the bird, it's a stressor to be caught."

If physiotherapy goes well for the owl she will be released back into the wild, near where she was found in eastern P.E.I. If it turns out she can't fly well enough to hunt, she'll be found a home in a Canadian wildlife park.

Students are thrilled to get close to the owl.

"They just look so special," said Holland College student Shawn Donovan. "Just an amazing animal to see."

Oakley said everyone should try to get a glimpse of a snowy owl before they migrate again in March. He warned, however, not to get so close to disturb them because they're busy trying to hunt.

Wild Encounters: Florida Burrowing Owls

One of the smallest species of owls, burrowing owls are about nine inches tall, so it is pretty hard for them to stand up and fight to save their habitat from development. That is why there have been many people as well as organizations that have made it their mission to help save the burrowing owls from destruction.

The movie “Hoot,” which did some filming on Boca Grande, was a movie based on Miami-based author Carl Hiaasen’s children’s book he wrote after he saw first-hand what was happening to the burrowing owls right in his own backyard in south Florida. His book was not simply just a children’s book with young characters; his book told the story of something real that was happening here in Florida right before his eyes. It told the story of how the burrowing owls were being destroyed because they were the only thing standing between big developers and the land they wanted to build on.

They are now on a protected species list under the heading of “candidate species” which were given the official listing, but there has not been enough date collected to give them full protection at this time. So there still are some being lost to the development process, but at least not at the speed they were being destroyed prior to their protected species listing.

Burrowing owls have white to beige spots and bars on their brown feathers. Unlike most owls where the female is larger than the male, that is not the case with burrowing owls. The sexes are the same size. They have long legs that help raise their height to give them a better vantage point for spotting predators as well as prey when they are standing on the ground. They do have several predators such as snakes, hawks, dogs, cats, raccoons and hawks.

These owls like to live in open areas that are sandy. They can be spotted in residential yards, airports and ball fields, as well as on golf courses around the state. They usually dig their own burrows but have been known to take over unused gopher tortoise burrows. They hunt mainly for insects, but they also hunt for small lizards, frogs, birds and snakes. You can hear their calls clearly. They have a variety of calls they use to communicate. They also bob their heads when they are excited or in distress.

I have friends who live in the Cape Coral area, and I have been able to get up close and personal with a pair of burrowing owls who have made their home just down the street in a neighbor’s yard for quite some time. I have shot several photos of them as I sat back and watched their daily behaviors. They are a beautiful bird and entertaining to watch.

They are more active in the daytime than most other owls, so they are easier to spot. Look for them in yards and open fields throughout the state. As with most wildlife, it is best to go looking for them just after daybreak and again just before nightfall. They can be approachable if you are slow and quiet with your movements, so have your camera ready to snap a few great photos of this mini sized owl.

Three men arrested for selling protected owls

WAYANAD (Kerala): Three men have been arrested for allegedly selling six specimens of a protected species of barn owls near here.

"One man was arrested early Dec 25 while the other two were trapped when they were trying to sell six juvenile owls. The arrested man had informed about the trading of owls by the other two men," Forest Range officer G. Pradeep said.

He said a tribal man, who had caught and handed over the owls to the three men, is yet to be arrested.

"This variety of owl comes under Schedule 4 and smuggling it is an offense for which one can get up to three years' imprisonment," Pradeep added.

There are about three dozen owl species common in the Western Ghats forests of Kerala. Of these, 11 species were caught illegally and smuggled to Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh last year to be sold as pets, forest department officials said. They added that an owl could fetch as much as Rs.800,000.

There is a well-established smuggling chain, starting from those who trap the owls, pass them on to others and sell them to customers in north India, the officials added

Police found three owls in Pangasinan

SANTA BARBARA, Pangasinan, Jan. 4 (PNA) -- The local police here rescued three owls on Friday and entrusted these to a local television station before turning these over to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Inspector Isaias Dominguez, the town's deputy police chief, with PO1's Jonathan Gabis and Christopher Idos, were on routine patrol in barangay Tuliao when they found the owls.

The birds were brought by them to the Police Station and later delivered to the care of ABS-CBN North Central Luzon Bureau Reporter Maria France Noguera.

After documenting the rescue, ABS-CBN turned over the three birds to representatives of the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office in Dagupan City that same afternoon.

Superintendent Eric Noble, chief of police of Sta. Barbara, said the three owls were named "Dominguez", "Gabis" and "Idos" after the names of the three policemen who found them.

Noble lauded the three as exemplars of the virtues of "Pulis Makakalikasan" (pro-environment).

At the same time, Noble learned that owls do not readily thrive in captivity and need open spaces to really thrive.

Endemic to the Philippines, the birds are mostly found in lowland forests in the islands of Catanduanes, Samar, Bohol, Mindanao, Luzon, Leyte and possibly Sibuyan.

Known locally as “kuwago” or “bukao”, owls usually have a total length of 40 to 50 centimeters (16-20 inches) and a wing-length of about 35 centimeters (14 inches), said Noble.