[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello, it's Philip and this is the Bear Den where we talk about bears, wildlife and the people and organizations making a difference for them.
We've obviously been trotting around the globe in recent episodes, but now we head back to where it all started, namely the Ventuti Wildlife Sanctuary. The inspiration for this episode is in the name wildlife. So we're primarily known as a bear sanctuary, but there are a multitude of other species that frequent the sanctuary.
Sandhill cranes, blue jays, ravens, eagles, goldfinches, pine martens, beavers, wolves and a plethora of others.
So I thought it would be nice to include an episode focusing on another visitor to the sanctuary and also spotlight another Minnesota based ngo.
So today let's talk owl about owls. There are many species of owl that
[00:00:56] Speaker B: pass through the sanctuary such as the
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Barred Owl and the great Grey owl in the winter.
Sidebar For Birders about an hour's drive from the sanctuary is the Saxon Bog, a nature reserve with a magical mix of habitats which is known as the place to find northern owls and finches in winter and warblers and other boreal birds in summer. But we are flying further down to Houston, Minnesota and today we are being joined by Carla Bloom, Executive Director of the International Owl Centre.
The Centre's mission is to make the world a better place for owls through education and research and is the only all owl education and research centre in the United States.
Carla shares her background working with raptors and how the International Owl Centre came about, including some of the owl personalities at the centre such as Alice, the Queen Bee owl.
Carla has also spearheaded some trailblazing research in the area of owl vocalizations, many of which you will hear demonstrated with aplomb.
And we discuss owl biology, the International Festival of Owls as well as plans for a new facility with walkthrough aviaries and ways people can live more owl friendly lives by avoiding harmful practices like poison use and protecting natural habitats.
Basically anything you need to know about owls is here.
We also discuss owls cultural impacts across the world and I'm so awed by the amount of owl information one person can contain. We will be back to chatting about bears next week but I hope you enjoy this for now.
It's a great informative chat and I really enjoyed hearing about the different reactions to owls from across the globe.
So we now go over to Kalle to hear if the owls are or are not what they seem.
There is a place in the remote northwards of Minnesota, North America. It's located near the town of orr, population approximately 300 outside of this town is an area where normal rules are put to one side. It's a place where humans and wildlife meet. It's a special place, wholly unique and not without its controversies. This is the Vince Schutte Wildlife Sanctuary, run by the American Bear Association, ABA for short.
The ABA is dedicated to promoting a better understanding of black bears and all wildlife through education, observation and experience.
I'm your host, Philip Stubley, and welcome to the Bear Den.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: So, yeah, first of all, I always quite like to get everyone to introduce themselves and just tell us where you're speaking to us from, because we get people from all over, so it's always nice to get some context.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: Okay, I'm Carla Bloom calling. Well, talking to you from Houston, Minnesota, which is way in the southeastern corner of Minnesota. Most people don't know there's a Houston in Minnesota because it's less than a thousand people. So very small.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: I mean, that's still bigger than some of the towns I've come across. Like, you know, I've had population 300 in some of the places. So, you know, it's like triple the size almost.
[00:04:00] Speaker C: Right. We're huge compared to that.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
And so, so what's your background? Like, how, how did you get into owls, essentially?
[00:04:12] Speaker C: I didn't intentionally get into owls, actually. My interest was birds of prey in general, so more hawks and things. Because I grew up on a farm down here in Houston county, and when I was out raking hay, the hawks would always follow me around because I was scaring up things for them to eat. So that's kind of what piqued my initial interest in birds of prey and trapped gophers. And sometimes they'd steal my gophers out of my traps and things like that. So I was in 4H and did the wildlife project and went to college for biology and worked under an ornithologist, so got more into birds, met a falconer. So after college I did falconry for just a bit, but was working as a naturalist. And then, I mean, I was living in Houston, Minnesota. No jobs in my field, basically in the county. So I'm commuting all over the place.
And two years out of college, the city of Houston is planning to have the Root River Bike Trail be extended there. And they have to plan what the trailhead is going to be because literally it's a blank slate because they were redoing the levy. So it was reclaimed farm fields. And the citizen group said, hey, we want it to be a nature center. So here I am, this 26 year old kid out of college, working as a naturalist, living outside of Houston, commuting all over the place. The little town I'm in is starting a nature center from the ground up. So I'm like, hey, can I help?
[00:05:36] Speaker B: It's like you could create your own job almost.
[00:05:38] Speaker C: Oh, literally, it was, it was a miracle.
So in talking to other nature centers, they all said, start doing programming before your facility is built because you don't have to have a facility to do outdoor programming or go to other centers.
I thought, okay, I like birds of prey. My kestrel that I had for falconry was great as a falconry bird. Too high strung to be an education bird. So I was looking for a non releasable bird. I honestly wanted a red tailed hawk or something and there weren't any available. The only bird that I could find was a great horned owl named Alice. So in the fall of 1998, I got Alice the great horned owl. And that started the whole owl thing.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: I see. And so what's, who is Alice? What's his story?
[00:06:29] Speaker C: If you hear noise in the background, that is Alice. She's.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:06:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: 29.
[00:06:36] Speaker C: 29, yep.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Oh, wow. That's like.
Didn't know. I, I don't know that much about owls, I have to admit. So I'll probably be asking quite a few sort of silly questions like I didn't know how old they live too, so.
[00:06:48] Speaker C: Sure.
So Alice fell out of her Nest at 503 Hogan street in Antigo, Wisconsin in the spring of 1997. And she damaged the end of her humerus right at her elbow joint. And that is an injury that was going to. They knew she would be non flighted, so she was super lucky. The Raptor education group is a phenomenal rehab facility and it was right in, right outside of Antigo, so she went there.
They did what they could. Took care of the dislocation of the elbow, but damage to the end of the humerus was going to make the bone grow odd. So she'd always have a droopy wing and never be able to fly.
So she clearly couldn't live in the wild. But because she was young and was able to be socialized with humans, she was deemed to be a good candidate for an education bird. So when I got her, she was a year and a half old in the fall of 98.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Oh wow. Yeah. And she's still with you owl these years later?
[00:07:45] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. So as a. I was used to little kestrels that are, you know, high strung and they just move fast and do everything fast. And then here's this big great horned owl that's a human imprint that wants attention. I'm like, this is so different.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:05] Speaker C: But as a human imprint, she would look to me basically as a companion and do all of her vocalizations to me and expect me to respond as a male great horned owl. And I didn't know what the heck I was doing and she was getting mad.
So I. Back in 2004, I started doing a vocal study on great horned owls because nobody had ever studied their vocalizations. I mean, they're common species across all of North America and that's probably why they're not studied. There's not much funding to study common species. There's funding to study rare species, but not common ones. So I started that back in 2004 with Alice Kind of as the focal point for the inner view of, you know, interpretation of vocalizations. Because in owls, vocalizations are inherited, they're not learned. So everything is hardwired. So even though she's an imprint, she's still got all the normal vocalizations used in the correct contexts.
And then started recording the wild owls in the area.
But kind of realized if I wanted to get the whole entire vocal repertoire and all the behavioral context, the only way that was going to be possible was to get a captive breeding pair. Because you can have all the nest cams in the world and you'll get great data at the nest, but that's not where everything happens. And the rest of the year you've got nothing.
So I got permits and got a non releasable breeding pair. Also from Antigo, Wisconsin in 2010, Rusty and Iris, we had a 96 foot long breeding and release training facility.
So we had them breeding live stream them so that people watching could help with observations because there's no way I can observe everything. So that way people were, you know, cool watching the cam and what's going on. But they're also helping with research and submitting observations. So some of our cam observers did amazing observations and one went on now to become an eagle owl researcher and she's the world authority on eagle owl vocalizations.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Oh wow, that's so cool. And how are your owl vocalizations? Do you care to demonstrate any or.
[00:10:10] Speaker C: Oh yeah, we do owl vocalizations at the owl center every day. It's actually on the job description for the educators. They have to be able to do them because that's how most people experience owls, is by hearing them, not by seeing them. And people always hear them. And you say what is It. Well, I don't know. It was an owl. Well, you can tell all the different species apart based on their vocalizations. And everybody always thinks about the normal territorial calls, but they have wide repertoires. So great horned owls, even their hoots, they've a bunch of different kinds of hoots. So a normal hoot for a male might be.
And a female.
So higher, more notes squished together in a shorter time frame. But that's just a normal territorial hoot. If they're mad, then they could do an emphatic hoot.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: So it's a variation on the hoot or our breeding male. Before he was. When he was interested in copulating, all the viewers called them his Barry White hoots because his voice would get low and he sometimes leave notes off the end. So it might be.
And he would do very smooth.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:28] Speaker C: Staring at his mate across room and it. And when she was interested, then she'd do these little girl hoots and then it switches to staccato hoots when they're excited.
And then he comes over, lands on her back and she's chittering and took me a long time. And a whole lot of copulation sequences to watch to realize it was the male that does this high pitch squeal that happens during copulation, acts out the high pitch vocalizations, but it's kind of this which you probably can't hear despite the male having eight talons in the female's back, you would think it's her, but it's actually the male that does the squeal.
So those are some of the different hoots.
And then they do a bunch of different kinds of chitters that can be everything from clucky in the nest, mom talking to the babies, or just conversational or annoyed or actually screaming if they're being physically restrained.
And then there's different squawks. So the best known is the juvenile begging call. But adult females can do it if they're hungry. Also like saying, hey dad, bring in more food. We're not getting enough food. At the nest.
They can do alarm calls, which can be like a whack whack, like a double squawk. But that can be used in other contexts and it can grade into a multi squawk. That's three or four notes that may or may not be an alarm call. I think the squawks get used in more than one context, so it's kind of hard to pin what they are.
And then unbeknownst to me, I, I thought after, oh, I don't know. 15 years. I knew it all. Yeah, Right. Then I met some owl banders at a conference and they said, hey, do you have a recording of the broken wing squeal?
I thought, great horde owls don't do broken wing displays. They're top predators. Why would they do a broken wing display? They don't do that. And they're like, oh, yeah, they do. Come banding with us, we'll show you. Not, not all of them, but there are a few that do.
So sure enough, in an extremely specialized context where it's right at pledging age, when the adults perceive an extreme threat, which is usually a dog. So it doesn't always happen if there's a dog there. Sometimes it happens. It's most likely if there's a dog present when banders are banding. So this is like the highest level threat that an owl could perceive. Then one or both adults may, either in the tree or on the ground, spread their wings out and make this really high pitched squeal.
So I finally went banding with them several years and was able to get a few good recordings of the broken wing squeal, which is similar to the copulation squeal, I suppose.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah, they're not too far apart when you think about it, I guess, but.
Oh, wow. I suppose. Yeah. That's the good thing about conferences though, isn't it? Like, you get, you. You'll meet someone and then of course you'll just.
It's common knowledge for them. Completely new for you. It's a. Yeah.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: Conferences are awesome.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Well, thank. Thank you for the sort of demonstration and the schooling on vocalizations is. What's Alice's favorite vocalization? I hope it's not. She's not too mad with you too. Too much, is she?
[00:14:47] Speaker C: Well, she's gotten owlier the older she's gotten.
So when she retired at age 21 because she was just getting too crabby to go to work and she, she had started out working at the Houston Nature center where it was just her and me.
She had a perch in the office looking out over the wetland and, you know, she had this beautiful view. And then when.
Long story, separate story. When, when we created the International owl Center in 2015 as kind of an outgrowth of our festival of owls that we started in 2003.
Then we're in a rented brick building and there's other owls there. She's not the only one getting attention.
She doesn't have this beautiful view anymore and she just. Yeah, owls don't do Change. Well, she didn't like it that much so we retired her at age 21 and then she started spending more time with my husband who's also retired. And so then I was no longer number one.
He was number one. So I sometimes get attacked if I go in her room and she doesn't want me in there.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Oh wow.
The other woman almost kinda.
[00:16:00] Speaker C: But then she also gets jealous too. If I'm talking to somebody, either in person or via zoom or on the phone, she knows I'm talking to somebody else. So then she'll get mad and hoot too.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Oh wow. Yeah, she definitely likes to say it herself, doesn't she?
[00:16:15] Speaker C: Yeah. This is an owl that has no lack of self esteem and self confidence.
She is the queen and she knows it. She's not princess, she's the queen in charge of everyone and everything.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: Oh, amazing. So, so yeah, we will get to talk about the international center and kind of how that all came together. I just thought maybe because I know that's, we've talked about the great horned owl, but I know there's quite a few species. But like what are the kind of,
[00:16:42] Speaker A: what defines an owl?
[00:16:43] Speaker B: Like what are the kind of common traits they all share?
[00:16:47] Speaker C: You would think that's an easy question to answer and it is not, it is not an easy question at all.
And even defining what a raptor is is very difficult.
So owls are all in the order strigiformes and some key parts, they don't have a crop. So hawks and the diurnal raptors have a crop. Owls don't have a crop.
Owls have cica. So there's dead end sacs at the end of their intestines where basically the wastes back up in there and ferment and make bioavailable some amino acids that aren't available otherwise. So other things, gallinaceous birds have that too. But hawks and hawks and eagles don't have those.
Of course. They have the hooked beak, you know, strictly carnivorous diet.
Their feet, they've got four toes like most birds.
When they're doing anything with their toes, they normally have two forward, two backward and then that outer toe can reverse forward. So if they're not doing something with their feet, like they've got it tucked up sleeping or they're flying, then they'll have three toes forward, one toe back. They're not the only ones that can do that though, because osprey can do that also.
So you've got all these and they, they tend to have wider skulls. It totally Depends on the species because we always think of owls as being hearing oriented. But not all owls are.
So some have much wider, more bulbous skulls. And like, like all birds, they have sclerotic rings. So it's a bony ring within the eye. And in some owls it's really, really big and pronounced. It makes their eyes very tubular.
You know, hawks will usually have a separate bone. That's their brow ridge. Owls just kind of have like a little pointy projection for a brow ridge.
Yeah, there's, there's no one great answer as to.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess there's so many little nuances to it because, because things that. Yeah, like, like you were just saying, there's what, the big eyes, the kind of, you know, nocturnal characteristics. That's kind of what comes to mind if I think of an owl. And I guess they're generally characterized as quite wily. And are they more or less intelligent than people imagine or.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: They're probably less intelligent than people imagine. Oh, no, Owls are very good at being owls. They're good at all the stuff they need to do. They're pretty hardwired.
But if you need to teach them something new or get them to do something new. Oh, it's going to be a slow process.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: It's almost like they're like. Well, we, we're perfect as we are. Why change?
Oh, nice. And so how many species are there actually, like worldwide? I suppose the question. I don't know. Or we could stick to North America. I don't know what the.
[00:19:51] Speaker C: North America.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: We can say 19 species in North America.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: 19. All right. Okay.
[00:19:57] Speaker C: It's complicated when you ask how many there are in the world.
So we had a presenter, Hemo Mikola from Finland, give a presentation, a one hour presentation on the question, how many owl species are there in the world?
Because nobody agrees. There are no two people that agree. And it's always evolving and changing with genetics. And then they're splitting this and vocalizations and this, that and the next thing. So the Lowest estimate is 220. Highest estimate is more like 270. So it depends also, are you splitter or are you a lumper? And species are not these nice clean concepts that everybody agrees on. You know, there's several different definitions of what's a species, seas and, you know, it's not a stagnant thing. Things are always moving and changing and evolving. So no great answer there.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: No.
[00:20:49] Speaker C: If you could say somewhere in the ballpark of 250, then you're. Yeah, I'll take that.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: I'll Take it, don't worry.
Well, it is interesting. It's like when people are wrangling over like different subspecies or whatever. And then I think nowadays there's a. You wouldn't think it, but I think there's about four species of giraffe.
Yeah.
I think as genetics is a big, plays a big part in that though, doesn't it?
[00:21:12] Speaker C: Yeah. And the fun thing with owls is because they're hardwired their vocalizations and they're not, they're not learning them, their vocal differences are very often a good indicator of how genetically different they are.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: Okay. No, that makes sense.
Well, not every owl is the same. But do they, do they contribute to their ecosystem in a similar way, like as, as I suppose, carnivores?
[00:21:39] Speaker C: Yeah. So owls are basically all carnivores, but different things based on different sizes. So if you're a little teeny weeny elf owl or a flamulated owl, you're mostly eating insects.
So you're, you're a predator, but you're not a top predator. But if you're something big like an eagle owl or great horned owl, you're eating very large prey where you can eat. And the largest owl in the world, the Blackistan's fish owl, they tend to focus more on fish and not even gigant fish and frogs, but they can eat some other stuff too, so they're functioning as predators. So if, if owls are doing well, generally the rest of the ecosystem tends to be. If, if you're screwing things up in the food chain, then that can have a negative impact on owls also.
And then one thing that most people don't realize is big owls eat little owls.
So the smaller owls are part of the owl food chain also. So if you're a great horned owl, you eat everything smaller than you, including long eared owls, barred owls, screech owls, saw it. Owls, you know, whatever's there.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: I did not know that. So no wonder you got to keep Alice separate, I suppose.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: Yeah. All the birds are housed separately and at the owl center we have mesh in front of them because in our current space it's just one big space.
So yeah, we can't just have them tethered on perches because at some point somebody's going to get loose. Things happen, you know, accidents happen.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: There'll be some broken wing squealing probably.
Oh no.
[00:23:12] Speaker C: Don't need anybody eating anybody else.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Of course not. Of course not.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: It's kind of like, I don't know, I just learned this a couple of years back when I didn't even know you've got like a. It's the leopard slug and it preys on other slugs. And I was just like, I didn't even know that. It's just.
[00:23:28] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
Well, I suppose you said, like, if owls are an indicator of, like, what's. If you've got a healthy ecosystem, like, what are the kind of threats that owls are facing currently?
[00:23:43] Speaker C: Usually people are the biggest problem.
So it's. And usually it's inadvertent. People in North America anyway, typically aren't consciously trying to harm owls. So it's things like they get hit by cars, obviously, small owls will fly into chimneys.
They will fly into the vents of vault toilets.
So there's a really cool poo poo project that the Teton Raptor center does to get grates on top of, you know, all of the national parks and state parks and whatever, get vents over there so the owls don't meet a horrible death inside a toilet.
Which does happen.
Insecticides, herbicides, pesticides. You know, it's getting into the food chain. It's getting into things they eat. A huge one that people don't realize is rodenticides. So when you're poisoning mice and rats, those mice and rats don't die for several days. And then they usually are seeking out water because most of them are anticoagulants, making them bleed internally, making them thirsty. So they're looking for water. If they got in your building, they can probably get out of your building. And then they're really easy prey for owls.
So there's a lot of studies on rodenticides. And of the ones that I've read, I think the lowest percentage I heard of owls tested was like 40% had measurable levels of rodenticides in their body.
Most of them are more like 60 to 80%. I've seen one where 100% of the owls tested had rodenticides. And usually it's more than one. It's not just one. So you're poisoning your natural rodent control when you're poisoning mice and rats. So we have a whole display at the owl center about here's all the different things you can do that aren't poison for controlling rodents.
They get in soccer nets, they get stuck in barbed wire fences.
Yeah, there's all kinds of things that. Oh, and then people spring people cutting down dead trees or dying trees.
Oh, there were baby owls in there. And, you know, they've either been killed or injured or orphaned or whatever. As part of so it's, it's usually ignorance on the basis, basis of humans. We're not intentionally doing it usually here in Western Europe and North America, but it's, we try to teach people to be aware of how our actions are impacting them. Now if you're a spotted owl, which is the rarest owl in North America, their biggest problem right now is the barred owl.
So barred owls have, were native to the eastern part of the United States and have gradually spread westward and are dropping down through Oregon, Washington into California. And they're like the big bad cousin of the spotted owl and they just totally out compete them. Spotted owls are, you know, just kind of these sweethearts that are very, very specialized and have a super specific diet. So if you're in California and you're a spotted owl, you pretty much eat flying squirrels and wood rats and virtually nothing else. And if you're a little farther north, throw in some tree voles. But super specialized so they have to have a huge territory. Well, barred owls, they eat anything and when they move out there, they even eat more of anything because they're, they're naive, they don't know what prey they shouldn't be eating out there.
So they just eat everything. And you can fit four or five barred owl territories in one spotted owl territory. So they just wildly out compete them, take the nest cavities, run the other ones off.
So spotted owls are going down the toilet really fast due to barred owls.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: Oh wow. And well, what is it we can do to help the spotted owls?
[00:27:32] Speaker C: It's not nice.
The only thing that has been proven to help spotted owls is shooting barred owls.
So as you can imagine, that is not a popular thing.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: No, I guess not. It's a bit like here in the UK we have like gray squirrels and red squirrels, which is very similar situation where gray squirrels are an invasive species and they are out competing and outmatching. I think it's because they, they, they carry it, they carry a disease that they're, you know, they're fine if they have it, but it affects the red squirrels and it's killing them all off.
So yeah, taking the gray squirrels out of the population is the only way to save the red squirrels. And you get a lot of arguments back and forth about, you know, the right way of doing it and then. Yeah,
[00:28:20] Speaker C: but it's probably even more acceptable for people to shoot a squirrel than it is to shoot an owl, you know, in our brains. If we're talking invasive species and okay, let's get rid of the Asian carp. Okay, People Aren't like, oh, my gosh, you can't kill carp or, you know, some invasive insect. Nobody's going to care if you kill an invasive insect. But then when you start getting into the more cuddly things, you know, a squirrel is more cuddly than a fish. Right. So fewer people are going to. And then when you get into an owl, that. That is like kind of crossing a border for most people. Like, you can't kill an howl to save another owl. But literally, if we want to save spotted owls, that may be the only option. But it probably has to be done very long term.
So is that something we're prepared to keep doing for decades and decades and decades?
Spotted owls are really slow reproducers. They only have young every two or three years.
So, yeah, it's not like most owls that kick out a bunch of babies every year.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Do they keep. They hang on to the babies for the two, three years before they leave, or.
[00:29:32] Speaker C: Good question. I don't think so.
Blackston's fish owls will have young with them more than one year, but I don't know that spotted owls do not.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Interesting. Well, like you say, they're all. They're all different.
[00:29:49] Speaker C: That's the thing about owls. They are all different. You know, everything you've learned about owls probably does not apply to all owls. There's exceptions to everything.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's probably. What do I know about owls? Probably learned it from, like, Winnie the Pooh or something when I was younger.
But. All right, then, so why don't we. Why don't we talk about the International Owl center? Trying to focus on something positive. It's quite a new. It's actually quite relatively new. The. The actual center itself. But you've been running programs for quite a while before that. And you mentioned you had the Festival of Owls as well. So I was like, I guess this all ties together. So, like, what's the sort of. What's the timeline here?
[00:30:26] Speaker C: Right? So the big question is, why on earth is there an International Owl center in Houston, Minnesota? And, you know, if you were going to start one, you wouldn't say, oh, let's put it in Houston.
It just evolved here. We never intended to do one. So when I got Alice in 1998 and started doing programs, that was on behalf of the Houston Nature Center. The Nature center was built in 2001, but I was very aware that it was there for tourism purposes. So I was trying to bring environmental education and tourism together and came up with the idea of, hey, let's do a hatch day. Party for Alice. She hatched in late winter. There's nothing going on then. Everybody likes Alice. Let's bring in some live owls. We'll do some fun family stuff. And 300 people came the first year, which in our little town, that's a lot of people.
So we kept doing it. And within a few years, we had people flying here from Alabama, California, New York.
Why are you flying to Houston, Minnesota, in the beginning of March, when the weather is whatever, you know, generally not nice for our Owl Festival.
And that's when we realized there's a lot of people that like owls, and there was nothing else like it anywhere in North America. So then we thought, well, hey, let's really add on. And we added a World Owl hall of Fame because we were having keynote speakers come in. And I realized, you know, these people have dedicated their lives to owls. Wouldn't it be cool if we could give them some public recognition for what they're doing?
So we solicit the nominations. We have experts from around the world do the judging. So they're judged by their peers, not by us.
And then we get to present the awards. So all the top owl people on Earth come to a little bitty Houston, Minnesota, to our Owl Festival and speak. So, yeah, that's great.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: That's like our Oscars almost.
[00:32:19] Speaker C: And then the one other thing that got just crazy was we started with the very first festival. We had a local coloring contest, and as the Internet grew, so did the contest. And then we started getting from around the world, and we had. We were getting like 400 to 700 entries from a dozen countries, which was really nice. And then one year, somebody posted it on Russia's biggest social media network, and we went from 700 entries to 4,000 entries.
We were completely unprepared to deal with that. But we now get. We average 2 to 4,000 entries from 30 to 50 countries every year. And it's amazing what these kids do.
So at the Owl center, we have like a hundred or more of them on display throughout the year, and we've got them on the street, banners in town and whatever. So anyway, that's one of the other things that blew up out of the Owl Festival. So as the festival grew and we kept adding more things and some really successful things, we started getting more and more people. And when we started having more than a thousand people come to the festival, that's when I thought, hey, there's a Wolf Center, a Bear Center, a Crane center, an Eagle Center. There's no All Owl Education center anywhere in The United States.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: So.
[00:33:39] Speaker C: So let's do that.
So in 2000. Well, the idea started in the late 2000s, and then I visited other facilities and got some other training and put together a board of directors and we had to do fundraising. So we opened in a storefront in 2015.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Oh, great. And I mean, yeah, 11 years later, growing bigger and bigger, I bet.
[00:34:02] Speaker C: Yes. Yep.
So we're in the process of doing a capital campaign to have the facility that we should have. Because being in a brick building is not where you would expect an owl center to be.
It's not ideal. The owls live off site out in the country and they commute to work every day.
So when we have the new center built, then they will live on site. We can have way more owls.
Adequate toilet facilities, that's one of the things staff is looking forward to because we have one toilet at our current facility, which on busy days is woefully inadequate. Or having a class of kindergarteners come or whatever.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: No. Great. And when you say like a working day for an owl, what is that? What's a typical workday for an owl? So you bring it into the. You bring it from the off site facility in and it's kind of, I guess, educating people.
[00:34:55] Speaker C: Yep. So we have the owl mobile, which is a van that's got owls on it, and I load them into transport boxes, drive them into work. And then each one has their own small space at work where they sit in front of our program area and they just kind of hang out there. Everybody can come see them. And then at the end of each program. So during the summer, we do three programs a day. The rest of the year we do two programs a day. And at the end of each program, we'll pick one of the owls to pick up and carry around and show the audience.
[00:35:26] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:35:27] Speaker C: And then they go home at the end of the day back to their aviaries where they have space to fly around, and then they get fed at night.
Oh, great.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: And I guess the are these. Majority of these will be rescue owls,
[00:35:38] Speaker C: I'm guessing, or it's a mixture. So because owls don't do change well, to be a good ambassador owl, they have to have been raised with this because if they're injured as an adult and they come into it, very, very stressful for them and they don't adjust well.
So we have Alice, obviously, was a rescue, and then Rusty and Iris, our breeding pair, were rescues. We have a barred owl. That's a rescue. He was about three weeks when he came into captivity. And then the other four that are currently going to work were all hatched in captivity for different reasons. The great horned owl was hatched as part of our vocal study on the species. And then the other ones at other facilities.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, really interesting. Very diverse then.
So who are some of the standout characters for you? What are their kind of personalities?
[00:36:29] Speaker C: Well, be the burrowing owl.
Yes. She's the little princess. And she does not always go to work. Thank you very much.
So I can sometimes get her to go to work.
If I can't, then I have to call one of our other co workers if she's working and say, well, hey, Joe, would you come and try and pick up B? Because Joe is bee's favorite person.
So B is finicky about coming to work. So sometimes I can get her, sometimes I can't. And if I can't, then I have to call Joe if Joe is working and say, hey, Joe, would you stop in and see if you could pick up B and get B to go to work? And sometimes that's a no for Joe also. So be varies. Sometimes she's at work in some seasons every day, and sometimes randomly, like yesterday, she wasn't going to work, thank you very much. But I think she went. I think she went to work two days this weekend out of the four that she should have been there. So she's. But she's just so cute. I mean, burrowing owls are adorable. And they stand there on one leg and everybody wonders if she's sleeping. And because burrowing owls are from open habitats and they're prey for anything because they're on the ground. So ground predators, aerial predators, everything eats them. So they're alert all the time. So her strategy is you sit out front and you're always watching and paying attention, whereas the other owls are like, we're going to blend in so people don't see us. So sometimes they're harder to see. But me, she's right out front, right where the visitors are so they can see her really, really good.
And, you know, just their movements are so cute. And it totally overshadows the whole endangered species thing. They're Minnesota's only endangered owl and they're declining pretty much everywhere else because of their habitat is kind of this open, barren environment where people like to build houses and shopping centers and things like that.
And, you know, they get eaten by things, they get hit by cars. They're migratory in the northern parts of their range, so a lot of things stacked against them. But she's just ridiculously Cute. So she's super popular. And then Pierce the barred owl, he's very popular also because he's very talkative.
So he's our rescue one that was found when he was three weeks old. And he likes a lot of attention so he basically thinks of me as his mate.
They alloprene. So he, in the mornings at work, he will hang on his mesh because he wants to sit with me at my desk. So I have to sit with him at my desk, try and type with one hand while he's. I have two monitors, so then one will have videos playing well, YouTube videos for cats basically, you know, little things running around on the screen. So he's busy watching that while I'm trying to do work and type with one hand on the other one.
But in this late winter to spring he's really talkative so I can just hoot to him and he hoots back and gets all worked up. So he's very. And he has toys that he likes to play with also. So he's got his plush mice come into work and I hide him in a couple places and first thing he does is go gets his mice and sticks them in his transport box. And so he's kind of a character also.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: So. Yeah, it sounds like you've got a nice, a really special relationship with him.
[00:39:43] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: I wish, I wish I could decide not to go to work any on any given day. Yeah.
[00:39:50] Speaker C: Wouldn't it be nice?
[00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah, wouldn't it? But.
And so, yeah. What sort of other programs do you run there then? You've talked like, obviously I know there'll be a lot of education and you've, you've said you've. There's some captive breeding.
Like what, what is, what is that until actually captive breeding?
[00:40:06] Speaker C: Well, we did the captive breeding just for the vocal study.
So that is over and done with now because Rusty aged out and we eventually had to put him down when he went 100% blind. So Iris has just retired, but she still streams to our YouTube channel. So you can watch her there.
And if you watch her, then you can hear our other owls at night also.
Yeah, so that, that was to study their vocalizations and they raised three batches of kids. One we were able to release one, the other two batches we were not allowed to release because they're very, very, very, very heavily regulated in the us So a breeding permit is one thing, a release permit is another thing.
So.
Yeah. So a lot of times people like, well, you should have released them. Well, yeah. Wouldn't that have Been nice. That was not an option. We were not allowed. Easy said, yeah. And I will just say that that game changed after we started playing the game.
So we were told we would be allowed to release. And then part way through they said, yeah, we're not gonna let you do that anymore.
So it was a very difficult situation for us to deal with.
So the second brood we hand reared so that we could look at the vocal development of human reared owls versus parent reared owls to look at, you know, is it on the same schedule? Are they doing the same vocalizations, that kind of stuff with the intention that they would be reared as education birds to replace Alice because I knew she was getting older and would need some time off.
And then we did one more batch of young wild reared by the parents, which was good because there was, it's, it's all context specific.
So if you don't have a context, you're not going to get those vocalizations. And we had a different context with the wild owls the last year we didn't have wild owls that were in near the aviaries. And so the owls didn't do as many vocalizations or just kind of skipped it until later.
So anyway, you've got to do multiple to get, to get a better idea of what's going on.
So it wasn't the ideal setup because we weren't allowed to carry out the research protocol as laid out initially when we got the permits.
So anyway, that's over. We're probably not ever going to breed anything again in captivity because we're not allowed to release.
And what, what was the other part of the question?
[00:42:44] Speaker B: Oh, I suppose like what other research are you working on then at the minute?
[00:42:49] Speaker C: So that then inadvertently spiraled into research detecting wild barn owls in Minnesota. So this was vocal research on great horned owls. The microphones were sensitive enough, they were catching most of the sound within half a mile.
Well, barn owls are not supposed to be in Minnesota. They're extra limital because it's too cold here. They shouldn't be here.
They're not built for cold weather. Well, in 2014, I recorded one as part of our vocal study.
It took two years before I could get the Minnesota Ornithologists Union to accept that, yes, this is a valid record of a barn owl because that's how rare they were.
And then in 2017, I got several more Barn Owl recordings. 2018, 2019. And at that point I thought, okay, barn owls are not saying, oh look, here's owl center facilities, let's go there. They're probably in other places.
So then I got some grants to get automated recording units.
Oh I have a little one here. So this is a song meter micro but I was using a larger, larger one.
And it's basically like a trail cam that records audio. So you program it when it's going to record what frequencies, what kind of schedule and you just put it out with its batteries and you let it sit there for a few months and then you pull the SD card and then you process the recordings.
And the first year was kind of experimental to figure out what kind of protocol. I got a little bit of data but not much. And then when I switched to just putting locate recorders in one location for an entire year then all of a sudden I started picking up barn owls all over the place.
So I think I've submitted most of the barn owl documentations for well most of the official documentation for barn owls in the state of Minnesota and almost single handedly responsible for reclassifying them. So the Minnesota ornithologists union has three different level accidental is I think once every 10 years or something like that. And then casual is, I don't remember more frequent than that. And then regular is you have to have every year for 10 years and I think this is the 10th year. But they only change the classifications on a, I don't know so many numbers of years. Anyway they'll be reclassified based almost entirely on the recordings that I've done.
So that's kind of exciting. So they're just really secretive around here. They're so strictly nocturnal, they don't say much and they're very good at being in locations away from people.
So the automated recording units just turned out to be the best way to do it to detect them.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: So it's kind of fun. So but like it's they are there. It's just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not I swear. I mean I don't know. I know we've at the sanctuary seen owls and I don't know if I'd have to check with Steph if she might said barn. She might have said barred owl. I sometimes forget it.
[00:45:58] Speaker C: You have to enunciate very well. Barred owl would be likely. Barn owl, very, very, very rare there. But with owls you never say never because there was a barn owl that showed up in sex in bog in January one year. Dumb idea. It died.
But they do bizarre things. They've bred in Canada before so you just don't ever. You never say never.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: Anything is Possible. Yeah.
Also that's really exciting. That's quite a long term study and it's getting valid. Well, it's validation for your work you're doing. It's really nice.
[00:46:34] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: And so the center as well. So is your, the Owl center, like is it open year round?
[00:46:44] Speaker C: The Owl center, because it's indoors, it's open year round.
We're open five days a week during the summer, four days a week, fall, winter and spring.
And then part of the reason we're not open seven days a week is because we only have one program space. So if we're going to have school groups and other groups come in, we have to be closed to the public.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: Right.
[00:47:06] Speaker C: So yeah. So right now we're doing finishing up school season and then heading into library season during the summer. But we always make sure there's one day a week that the birds don't have to work at all. And Ruby, the great horned owl winds up doing a lot of the off site programs. So if she's been doing a lot of off site programs, then on a day we're open, we may, may let her stay home because she lets us know if she's working too much. We go to pick her up and she'll step up on the glove and then she squeezes really hard.
[00:47:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's a way of telling you not today.
[00:47:37] Speaker C: Right.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: No, I suppose I should ask this earlier as well. I know when you said, when you said southeast Minnesota, like just for like context, like how far is that, say from like the Twin Cities?
[00:47:51] Speaker C: We're two and a half hours southeast of the Twin Cities, half an hour west of La Crosse and half an hour south of Winona.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: Okay, it's good to know next time I visit.
And yeah, I guess I. Well, when you get the sentence, obviously you get, you've got school, kids, you've got the general public. What are the kind of the common questions people ask and are there particular myths and misconceptions you find yourself commonly addressing?
[00:48:18] Speaker C: Well, one of the big ones that's a common question and a myth and misconception is how far can an owl turn its head? Head.
So we always ask people, how far do you think they can, you know, can they go? 360. And some people will say, well yeah, they can. And some people like, no, they can't turn their head all the way around. Well, I always say how far can you turn your head?
Because you can't answer that question without having a reference point.
If you're starting from the front, most Humans can go around 90 degrees, but if you're talking full extension, most humans can do close to 180.
So the same thing with owls, you cannot have that discussion without having a reference point. Are you talking full extension or are you talking starting from the front?
So if you're talking full extension, all owls can turn their heads 360 degrees. They all can start over the spine one way, go all the way around over the spine the other way. So yes, all owls can turn their heads 360 degrees, but the number you always hear thrown around is 270. Owls can turn their heads 270 degrees. Well, what does that mean? Most people think that's full extension. What that actually meant to describe is from the front to the side over the spine and then over the other shoulder. So three quarters of the way around from the front.
Now that being said, I've never seen an owl do that. And I talked to a whole bunch of other researchers. I'm like, have you ever seen an owl turn? It's at 270. No, none of them have ever seen an owl Turn its head 270. I talked to a couple of educators that had captive birds that would hyper fixate on something and they could walk around them. And I think one was a barn owl and one was a long eared owl that would do 270 from the front.
And I thought, you know what, we have all these dead specimens and we do dissection classes where we have people come in and we'll dissect like six different species of owls at the same time and compare and contrast. And you can, can right real up close, see all the differences between serrations and ears and eyes and all that kind of stuff. Toes, feathers.
So I thought, let's turn the heads on these dead ones, okay? Those are going to go farther than live ones, right? So a great horned owl physically cannot turn its head more than over its spine. It absolutely cannot go farther than that, even if you crank on it. Long eared owl, whoo. It can almost do the Exorcist, I'm trying to think. So each one has a different range of motion than other ones. So basically throw the numbers out of the window. All owls can do 360. If you're talking full extension to full extension and some species can do more is a better answer than 270, but it's a very long answer. So that's, that's a very common question and very common misconception because people like, they can Turn their heads 270Throw that
[00:51:18] Speaker B: out the window, memorize the fact of it, it's not, not been applied, I suppose. Yeah. Oh, well, that's good to know. I, I, I probably would have been, I might have just said, oh, they can turn it 360 and. Yeah, I wouldn't even thought about it. So.
[00:51:32] Speaker C: Yeah, well, they can, you're right. They can Turn their heads360.
[00:51:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:35] Speaker C: Talking full extension.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:37] Speaker C: It means it's absolutely meaningless without a frame of reference.
[00:51:42] Speaker B: Oh, that's fun.
[00:51:43] Speaker C: People always ask how long they can live.
So owls in general are kind of the opposite of dogs, where the larger owls live longer and the smaller owls live shorter. Typically not always.
So a great horned owl in captivity, healthy, if things go well, can be late 20s, early 30s. You get some extremes that are more than that, but that's like people living, you know, to be a hundred or older than that.
You know, smaller owls, typically not that long. Like, I don't think an elf owl would ever live to 10 years even in captivity, probably.
But I've heard of a pygmy owl making it into late teens. So that's a small one living a long time. So it varies.
What are some of the other common questions? How much do they weigh? They always weigh a lot less than people think. They're not mammals. They're poofy. They have to be able to fly. Most of their bones are hollow. Not all, but a lot are.
So something like a great horned owl here in Minnesota, you know, you're talking three, maybe to four pounds, something like that.
So they're not that heavy. The heaviest owl in the world would be Blackston's fish owls in the Russian Far east and Japan.
So an adult female breeding season can be around £10. So kind of close to female bald eagle. Not a huge bald eagle, but decent bald eagle size.
And then those little bitty ones, you know, an elf owl, if they were flat, you could mail them for two stamps because they're just, just way nothing. They're so tiny.
[00:53:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:29] Speaker C: So wide range of, of weights, but much less than people think. And some, some of the little ones, like pygmy owls, although they look only a little bit bigger than like a flammulated owl or an elf owl. They're just like little bodybuilders. They're just solid. They're not poofy. And they will kill birds that are two or three times bigger than they are. So they're just these aggressive, little muscular or whatever. And then you have flamulated owls. They're just these Little poofy things that eat moths and have these little delicate toes on them. So although they might physically look similar, one is much lighter than the other one.
[00:54:09] Speaker B: Oh, wow. It's really, it's really interesting. It's like. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Different temperaments, different species again. And little sort of Napoleon complex in one, then just like little sort of mousiness in the other. Yeah, yeah.
[00:54:21] Speaker C: The pygmy owls, I've been told you if you're going to house them together, you have to put them in a huge enclosure or a two part enclosure because although they may only be that big little teeny weeny things, the female will kill the male and rip his head off if they don't have a giant enclosure. They're just like ferocious little things. If great horned owls had that attitude, humans should fear for their lives, I think.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: Well, it's like you make me think we, we.
They had the big program to reintroduce red kites to the UK over the last few years and it's been really successful. But yeah, you hear quite a few stories about these red kites, lights coming along and trying to make off with people's picnic food.
[00:55:00] Speaker C: Too much human interaction, it sounds like there possibly.
[00:55:05] Speaker B: But again, they do look beautiful in flight though, so all is forgiven.
I'm sure that, I mean all owl species are great, but are there any particular species that are your favorite, like either to work with or in general?
[00:55:19] Speaker C: Well, I mean, great horned owls are my favorite because of the, with Alice and all the research and spending time with researchers and. Yeah, so that's my favorite one because I know it the best.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense.
[00:55:33] Speaker C: But Blackistan's fish owls are totally awesome. So I got to go to Japan and see some this last fall and they're just, they're just huge and they're like these, I don't know, like big shaggy owl kind of crossed with teddy bear kind of look just amazing. And they have these low voices and they do a perfect duet and they're different than most other owls. Most other owls. The female, although she's bigger, has the higher voice and the male has the lower voice. Reversed fish owls. The female is still bigger, but she's got the lower voice and they do a perfect duet. Most, most owls in the world, okay. They both sing, but it's not like a scripted duet.
Blakiston's fish owls, when they sing, it sounds like one bird. Boo boo Boo or Boo boo Boo Boo. It just sounds like one bird. But the first boo boo is the male and then the boo is the female. But perfect timing.
[00:56:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Perfectly in sync with each other. Oh, that's cool. That's nice. Where in Japan are they found? Throughout Japan or is it like North Island, south island or.
[00:56:42] Speaker C: No, they were only. They used to be throughout all of Hokkaido. Way in the north. North. And now they're just way.
There's a few remote places in the north. So there's. There's probably. I don't know if it's less than 100 birds or less than 100 pairs in Japan.
So Russia has more. But then there's a question of are they even the same species anymore or have they diverged enough that they're different species? Because the vocalizations are slightly different. In Russia, they only breed every two years versus every year in Japan. The Russian ones, I think, have a white spot on the back of their head.
So. Yeah.
And yeah, good luck. You're not going to Russia to work with them currently?
[00:57:25] Speaker B: Probably not, but I'm actually. Well, I am going to Japan next year. Oh.
[00:57:29] Speaker C: And you might be interested in.
There's a national. The total aside, there's a national Ainu museum outside of Sapporo in a. In another smaller town.
So the Ainu are the native Japanese and for them they're. They're the only culture that I know of that has really viewed owls as gods. So the blackest, because they have the blackest. And fish owl and they depended on fish and the fish owl depended on fish and.
But bears are also really huge in their culture.
And so that museum was just amazing to learn more about what they do. And we happened to be there on a day where it a holiday and they had. I knew artists who had all kinds of things that they were selling, carvings and plates and all kinds of stuff and they. They would have much bear. A lot of bare stuff there too.
[00:58:25] Speaker B: Oh, I'll definitely. I'll look that up. I'll make a note. I knew is actually.
[00:58:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: So when you say about like worshipping owls as gods, is there a lot of folklore about owls in general around like in North America and. Yeah, you could go it.
[00:58:39] Speaker C: Yeah. Around the world throughout history, people were not ambivalent about owls. People loved them or feared them. Typically. There's not a lot of people like that's an owl. I mean owls are just special because you don't see them. They're always kind of mysterious. And so, you know, that's probably one of the most positive views of owls anywhere is the. I knew and well, and then the Greeks, they're Symbols of wisdom. Right. Because they were with, with the goddess Athena. She always had her little owl. So. And that's probably where it's carried down to this day, where people think of owls as wise probably filtered down from Athena.
But then there's a whole lot of, even on different continents, some kind of association with death.
And it can be like in, in much of Africa, people are afraid of owls because if they land on your house and call somebody in your house is going to die.
So in some places they may actually proactively kill them because they don't want them to land on the house. But in other places, like some of the native cultures in North America may be very fearful of them. Like, oh my gosh, don't give.
Is it Navajo?
Somebody was telling me that his fiance was Navajo and he wanted to get something for his mother in law. And he was at a little shop shop and they had some items with owls. And he was saying, oh, this is for my mother in law. And they said, do not get her something with an owl on it. Because that's basically kind of saying, hey, I want you to die.
[01:00:20] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah, that's not quite. That's not. Definitely not the message you want to be sending.
[01:00:23] Speaker C: Oh, no. But then in some it's more just objective, like, okay, an owl is a messenger of death, but that it, it's just a messenger. It's not the owl's fault. He's just delivering a message. So then there's no hard feelings towards the owl. But there's still an association with death in.
I think it's in the Columbia River Valley. Some of the natives there believe that the, the spirit of the owl is so powerful that normal people shouldn't look at one because our spirits aren't strong enough to handle dealing with the spirit of an owl. So that's kind of the domain of shamans.
China and Mongolia, there's some traditions of using flank feathers from Eurasian eagle owls. So from the side of their legs and putting them on headdresses and things like that. So they were sort of protectorates to help keep you safe, bring wealth, things like that. Well, and then the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, her vehicle is an owl.
So in some Hindu sex they used to. And a few still do. It's not legal. Will sacrifice an owl on Diwali because if you kill the owl, then the goddess Lakshmi can't leave your home. And that brings you wealth in the coming year.
So not good.
So there's all kinds of stuff all over the world in different ways. And you know, some of these ancient bronze wine vessels from China, we don't know what it meant to them, but there's several that were done in owls. So obviously that was a.
These are very expensive things. So obviously it was an important symbol for them.
[01:02:12] Speaker B: Oh, wow. They're really. Yeah. Like when you, when you, like I hear you're just talking about it, like everywhere. They've really permeated almost every culture on some level.
[01:02:20] Speaker C: Yeah. And then in Australia, the Aboriginal people, there's a gord l.
Haven't done that one. Anyway, there's for them the creator beings created the landscape and then became part of the landscape.
And there's this huge stone rock that has kind of this cap sitting on it at an angle that looks like an owl.
And to them, if they come near that, they can feel the spirit of their ancestors there. And it's near a mining site where gogomot, that's what it's called. That one is gogomot.
[01:03:02] Speaker B: All right.
[01:03:03] Speaker C: Oh, wow. So there's all these different things all over throughout history, around the world.
[01:03:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And why do you think that is then? Why do you think owls are so important to people?
[01:03:14] Speaker C: Well, and that's the question that people still ask, why owls? And it's very hard to put your finger on it, but the Global Owl Project has done a whole lot of surveys, cultural surveys around the world, about what people currently think about owls and what the historical beliefs were and, you know, how strongly they're held.
And one of the people that did a survey gave an answer that I think is just perfect. They said owls enchant the night.
And, you know, isn't that what they do?
Because that's, you know, they're mysterious to us. You, it's not like, oh, yeah, I'm just gonna go see an owl. You, you hear them, you don't see them. It's just this mysterious thing that is, is special in some way. And, you know, the, the pat answer is owls have large heads and forward facing eyes like us. So they look like us. Eh, I don't know if that's that, but that's it.
[01:04:12] Speaker B: I prefer the more romantic side.
[01:04:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I do too.
[01:04:15] Speaker B: Well, I was good. So obviously I don't particularly want to be shooting owls if they land on my house. So, like, how can, how can one live an owl friendly life?
[01:04:25] Speaker C: Oh, on our website, we actually have a whole section on how to live an owl friendly life.
[01:04:30] Speaker B: Oh, right.
[01:04:31] Speaker C: So it's like using traps instead of poison to control rodents. That's a huge one.
Leaving dead and dying trees standing when it's safe to do so. And if you have to take them down, which there certainly are some that have to come down, if you can wait till fall, that's the best time to do it, because then nobody should be nesting in there.
[01:04:53] Speaker B: I swear. I swear. There was like a big story a couple of years back when, you know, it was a big Christmas tree, and I think they put it up somewhere in New York, Right. And there was like a little baby owl in it.
Went quite viral, didn't it?
[01:05:05] Speaker C: Yeah, Rocky the saw whet owl. So he wasn't a baby, it was an adult.
[01:05:09] Speaker B: Okay, Right, sorry.
[01:05:10] Speaker C: Yeah, they roost in coniferous trees and it just got folded in there.
[01:05:15] Speaker B: Oh, good thing. But he got.
His story ended. All right. He got back to the wild, didn't he? Yes. That's okay.
[01:05:22] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. And then the other big media one recently is Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl that got loose from the Central Park Zoo after vandals cut his. His enclosure open a few years ago and they couldn't catch him. So he lived free in Central Park.
And, you know, he was the symbol of freedom to so many people. People. He inspired people. Like, probably no owl ever. I mean, you can't see an eagle owl and go, yeah, that's eagle owl. It's like, wow, that is so cool. So people, you know, just flocked to go see him. They came from all over the place. People who never cared about birds before suddenly were inspired to care about birds. I mean, just. He had this amazing impact. There's no way that story was going to end well because he was eating rats and it's New York City rodenticides. Like, he's going to die of rodenticide poisoning. So just.
He amazingly lived over a year. Just over a year. And then he was found dead at the bottom of a building with lethal levels of rodenticides and pigeon herpes virus. So everything he was eating was killing him.
[01:06:28] Speaker B: Oh, wow. It's like, it. Almost like it encapsulates like the, the beauty, the. The. The sort of romantic, beautiful side of owls, but also you've got, like, you say the, the negative side as well. It's kind of. That kind of encapsulates the whole picture there.
[01:06:41] Speaker C: Oh,
[01:06:43] Speaker B: hopefully. Well, if owls, as long as they're not eating redenticide, if. Do you get like, many people getting in touch with you if, if they find an injured owl or anything like that or.
[01:06:54] Speaker C: We don't do rehab, so we generally. If they're in Minnesota, we usually Refer them to the Raptor center in St. Paul.
But we do get calls because we're the International Owl Center. We get calls from all over. You know, I'm in Texas, I've got an injured owl or hey, there's an owl on the ground in Arizona or I'm on a super yacht off the coast of Florida and an owl landed on our ship, I'm in Indonesia and have a pet owl and it's sick. What do I do? You know. So we get maybe about 80 calls a year. So our role is to kind of give advice and help assess the situation because young owls, especially this time of year are on the ground and are usually fine and don't need intervention. So we can kind of help figure out does this bird actually need help or just put it up in artificial nest or put it up on a branch or keep your dogs inside or does it actually need to go to rehab and where's your closest rehabber and how do you safely pick it up and transport it? So that's kind of our role. So we do have information on our website for if you find an injured owl to help kind of assess and what do you do? And then we have a link if you're in the United States to the state lists of rehabbers so you can figure out where the closest place is for you to take it. And then if it's a local one like we had a, a young barred owl that was his eyelids had been just bitten heavily by black flies and they were all scabbed over and he wasn't as lively as he have been. So we have a network of volunteers then to get them up to the Raptor center because it's two and a half hours away from us.
[01:08:28] Speaker B: And what is the website just. I will put it in the show notes but if you want to let everyone know where they can find it, that'd be Great.
[01:08:35] Speaker C: International Owl Center.org and there's a simple load of various information on the website if you want to dig around through it.
[01:08:44] Speaker B: Oh fabulous.
And yeah, was there, was there anything else you'd care to mention as well or like any particular takeaways you'd want listeners to, you know, think about?
[01:08:58] Speaker C: Well just. Oh, and I only mentioned a few of the things you can do to live an owl friendly life. If you go on our website I think there's about 20 things listed in there like you know, take down soccer nets when they're not in use, take down barbed wire that's never going to be used again, cap chimneys there's there's just so many things that you can do and it's about just being aware of how we impact owls because for the most part, we're their biggest problem and we're unaware of how we're doing it. So if, if everybody can do just one thing different in their life to help owls, it's going to add up and make a difference. So that's kind of our, our take home point. But the exciting thing is, you know, we're working towards this new center and the new facility we're building is going to have walk through aviaries, where you literally walk through the side of the owl aviary. And the owls are in these large spaces with natural vegetation, with nothing between you and the owls. But the aviaries are designed so the owls don't want to come where the out where the people are. So it's a design that was pioneered in Germany by Wolfgang Scherzinger back in the 1980s and copied by several zoos in Europe. But nobody in the United States. United States is doing it for owls. So we will be. We'll kind of set the new gold standard for owl aviaries in the United States. And if people want to donate, they can do that on our website. If they're able to donate in a significant way. You can have an avary named after you or one of the rooms in the building.
And all that information's on our website.
[01:10:26] Speaker B: Oh, amazing. And when do you think that that will be open and ready to the public?
[01:10:32] Speaker C: 100% dependent on fundraising.
So it's all dependent on that. We already own the four and a half acres. We've removed all the buildings. We don't have any mortgage on it or anything. We own it free and clear. So we just need to raise a few more million dollars and then we'll build it.
[01:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I hope anyone listening is able to spare. Spare something. That sounds like. Great. Yeah. No, I want to, I want to visit now. So I know where you are. Two and a half hours south of St. Paul.
[01:11:03] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:11:04] Speaker B: Oh, that's grand. Oh, that's lovely. I've really enjoyed this, this talk. I've really enjoyed learning about owls. So, like I say, I feel like I'm one of those people. I've been quite aware of them and I know bits and bobs, but like, no, this has been quite an education.
[01:11:17] Speaker C: So have you been to the Scottish Owl Center?
[01:11:19] Speaker B: I have not, no. But maybe I should.
[01:11:21] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. They have about 40 different species there. There's probably no place on Earth that has more species of owls than they do there.
[01:11:32] Speaker B: Okay. No, no. I'll again make a note. We'll try and get out there.
Nice little day trip overnight.
[01:11:38] Speaker C: Yep.
[01:11:40] Speaker B: Oh, fabulous. Oh, thank you very much.
[01:11:43] Speaker C: You're welcome.
[01:12:00] Speaker A: The Bear Den the American Bear Association Podcast was written and presented by me, Philip Stubley. The music was composed by React Music.
Thank you to everyone who has helped make this podcast possible, including Karen Hauserman, Bill Lee, Clarie Lee, Steve, Stephanie Horner, Donna Brzinka, Ross Coyer, and Angie Page.
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