Burrowing Owls Get Ground-level Help At Humane Society Nursery

BURLINGAME, CA — The Santa Clara Valley Habitat Agency has joined forces with the Peninsula Humane Society in the hopes a new pilot program will help the diminishing number of local burrowing owls soar.

With a face a mother and everybody else would love, this "species of special concern" has reduced at last count to 40 nesting pairs in Santa Clara County, the Audubon Society reported as of 2009's count. Seventy-percent of the population lives in the Imperial Valley on the east side of Southern California.

The culprits of what kills the owls ranges from lost habitat to simply the ground-level nature of these small, yet long-legged owls found in open landscapes like grasslands susceptible to prey. Then, there's the issue mothers have with being spread thin in caring for the youngsters.

The "Head-starting" program involves the Habitat Agency removing some of the babies from their nests and caring for them in a special nursery at the Burlingame outdoor aviary until their releases into the wild nine months later.

“Burrowing owl mothers often hatch more babies than they can feed and raise to survival. This program will remove a few of the owlets from different nests to allow the parents to concentrate their efforts on a smaller family," Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA Communications Manager Buffy Martin Tarbox said of a trend many human families might relate to. "We will then care for and raise the removed owlets in our nursery until they are adults and return them to the wild as strong and healthy owls ready to reproduce."

A majority of burrowing owl babies don’t even survive their first year. Since these birds burrow in the ground, they are easy prey for a variety of predators. The burrowing owl populations have crashed due to rampant development, encroachment on their native habitats and high levels of predation.

“The owlets that are in our nursery have been carefully selected. They are the smaller ones from various nests, and without human intervention, would more than likely not survive,” according to Tarbox. “By head-starting these babies, we can provide them the food and care they were not receiving and raise them to be strong and healthy adults.”

Morgan Hill's Habitat Agency has collected six orphaned burrowing owls, and the goal is to assist 14 this year, Executive Officer Edmund Sullivan told Patch.

"Seventy percent of the chicks would die if we didn't have this program," Sullivan said.

The agency's Habitat Conservation Plan is endorsed by federal and state governments that allow the organization to streamline permitting processes on local infrastructure projects through the collection of fees.

The new Burrowing Owl nursery is funded entirely by donations. PHS/SPCA’s Wildlife Care Center successfully rehabilitates 1,200 to 1,400 animals each year.

Check out the burrowing owls at the nursery here.