Approximately 25 years ago, I began the most interesting project of my life. I started Fresno Wildlife Rehabilitation Service, a non-profit, tax-exempt organization with no paid staff. Our goal, during the early stages was to take in orphan/injured native wildlife and return them to the wild whenever possible. Now, 25 years later, our focus has enlarged. We still care for the orphaned/injured, but now we stress education and partnering with people from all over to help them understand what benefits await them if they will work with some wildlife, instead of ignoring them. That is the case with the Barn Owl. THEY ARE TRULY NATURE'S GIFT TO THE AG GROWER.
Our Barn Owl project came out of a special need. I was raising approximately 200 Barn Owls each Spring in my home all those years ago and frankly I was worn out. I asked for and received help from some local teachers and their students to assist me in the raising of the many Barn Owls. As an educator myself, I knew that this would be a natural combination that would work:
1. I needed help with so many birds to raise.
2. The children would be able to assist and observe the wild Barn Owl young up close and be able to appreciate their beauty, strength and just what the birds mean in terms of helping to keep rodent populations down.
3. The teachers could use "Barn Owl Time" to teach so many things, such as, wildlife care and appreciation, zoology, science, natural history, spelling, geography, art, etc.So it was. The project, where we place the young, orphaned barn owls into classrooms for the children to care for completely until the birds begin to try to fly, was such a success. It became known as the "Win-Win" school project and we have had many calls asking us to place birds in classrooms ever since. (As a side note, the teachers say their classes are never so good as when the owls are there. Most teachers use the work with the Barn Owls as a reward for good behavior and for completing assignments.) Once the owls begin to "levitate" we place them in small flight cages, called mews, and they live there until release. Some farmers are so in to this, that they actually built the mews on their property to help get the birds started on their acreage. Once the owls are ready to fly, they are banded by the students that helped to raise them and are released at the mews site. This is done with the hopes that when they begin to make a nest, they will utilize the nest boxes that the farmers have put up on the property.
The "Barn Owls In the Classroom" project lead me to believe if I could convince some farmers/growers to put up Barn Owl boxes, we may be able to effectively lower the number of young Barn Owls that fall from nests. In the San Joaquin Valley, palm trees are favored by Barn Owls parents as nest sites. However since they do not actually build nests, but rather use the hollowed palm fronds to lay their eggs on, once the young hatch and if there is a strong wind, the owls come tumbling down to the ground. Palm trees are horrible nest sites, in my opinion, but the owls never asked me. Many news articles were written about our "Barn Owls In the Classroom" project and how we felt the owls could do so much to help keep the pocket gopher population down. So we were very excited as more and more growers called us to see about buildling nest boxes. That is when we got involved with Steve Simmons from Merced, a shop teacher, who has his students turning out nest boxes like crazy. Mr. Simmons is so dedicated to his students and also to the project that is so dear to him, doing Barn Owl and Wood Duck counts. With Mr. Simmons help, we now spread the news about what great partners the Barn Owls make for the ag grower.
A pair of Barn Owl parents are capable of catching up to 200 field mice in one night for their hungry young. Barn Owls usually lay from 4-7 eggs, but sometimes 3-11. In our valley, according to Mr. Simmons and his students, over a 2 year period where they studied 48 Barn Owls from all different habitats, they found 17,000 prey items; 42% were pocket gophers, 30% voles, 17% deer mice, 5% house mice and 5% misc. which would include birds, lizards, insects, etc. MOST IMPORTANTLY, MR. SIMMONS SAID THAT WHERE GRAPES WERE THE DOMINANT CROP, HIS STUDY FOUND THAT THE TAKE OF POCKET GOPHERS AMOUNTED TO 58%. That is up from the general study of 42%. WOW!!!!
There are many statistics agreeing with Mr. Simmons work, but the main thing is how can you go wrong by making the owls your partners? One grower told me, during a conference, that he had put up 21 nest boxes and after the first Spring, he found that 16 were inhabitated and he had noticed an appreciable difference in pocket gopher damage. He was certainly a believer of the project. Wouldn't you like to lower your gopher damage and lower your rodenticide bills too? This is such a win/win project, how can you afford not to try it? If 23 nest boxes, studied over a 6 month period, produced 7,100 pocket gopher remains, don't you think it is time you added "Barn Owl partners" to your business?
Cathy Garner
Founder/Director
Fresno Wildlife Rehabilitation Service
phone (559) 298-3276
fresnowildlife@psnw.com