BURKE MOUNTAIN NATURALISTS YOUNG NATURALISTS’ CLUB
bmnync gmail com http://www.burrowingowlbc.org Burrowing owls are owls that nest underground. These owls are becoming endangered so a man named Steve Howard kept these owls in his farm so they would be safe, but there was a problem. The burrowing owls live better in warmer places, so in the winter it wasn’t a very good idea for the owls to stay in the cold farm. So every winter the man would free the owls to go migrate. When winter passed and the season got warmer some of the owls would come back, but only a few. Out of the hundreds of owls that he set free only about 3 to 4 came back. As the years passed by Steve kept freeing the owls in the winter and the number that came back increased but not by much, but one year when he set the owls free about 20 had come back. It doesn’t seem like that much but really it is. When the owls go they can get killed by predators, cars, people, etc. Some can get captured, and most of them don’t come back because they have found another owl to be with. So when you set hundreds of owls free and 20 come back it means that you take care of them very well. These owls are excellent flyers and they are very beautiful. by Enora (age 12)
“When I went to the farm with the BMN YNC, it was the closest I’ve ever been to an actual owl, and I even got to touch one, but not a burrowing owl. It was a barred owl that they found. They had taken so much care of it that when they let the owl free, it didn’t want to go. They named the owl Shiko.” * We thank the people at the Burrowing Owl Society of BC for showing us these beautiful birds and Paul Steeves for taking the photographs.