For the people who love them, burrowing owls are full of personality. The small terrestrial owls have a tendency to constantly look surprised and judgmental with their strong eyebrows.
“They dance around,” said Marie Palowoda, a volunteer with Wild at Heart Raptors. “Their whole families would come out… watch them kind of interact with each other.”
Wild at Heart Raptors, a nonprofit based in Cave Creek, is working with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on the “Burrowing Owl Relocation Project.”
Burrowing owls are a federally protected species that has been on the decline for years, according to BLM.
“Our main goal is to take burrowing owls that are [at] risk from construction development — a lot of times it’s from housing development — and relocate them from those areas where they are at risk to areas they won’t be," said Eric Murray, the operations and conservation manager with Wild at Heart Raptors.
Volunteers are a vital part of the Burrowing Owl rehabilitation program from beginning to end. They help with building new habitat for the owls, preparing tents for release and feeding the owls once they are placed in the tents that have been built on BLM land.
“We trap them we bring them here, we keep them here for about a month,” Murray said.
“Some can be laid back — hang out,” said Jenohn Wrieden, a biologist with Wild at Heart Raptors. “Others will be very territorial, just freak out.”
The different personalities are easy to see as Wrieden and Murray put bands on the owls in preparation for their release. Some of the owls easily tolerate the handling, while others let out clicks. Murray says the clicks are meant to be threatening.
The owls are checked for a clean bill of health before they make the journey from the Wild at Heart headquarters to the BLM land in Gila Bend.
The owls are placed in mesh tents and left to acclimate to the new location. They are given three mice and water daily before the tents come down.
“Then the birds are free to stay or go,” Murray said. “So, if they at least stay in that general area and don’t go back home, then we feel pretty good about what we’re doing and giving them the best chance to survive.”
Volunteers like Palowoda come to shovel dirt, build tents, and feel a part of nature.
“These projects are a real good way to feel more grounded and connected to the world around me,” Palowoda said.
Murray says one of the main issues with urban development and its threat to the burrowing owls is that the owls don’t have a fear of people.
“Which makes it difficult when it comes to construction and development because they are more likely to stay there,” Murray said.
Suitable habitat for the owls is becoming harder and harder to find. According to Murray, many farmers like having the owls on their land as a form of pest control. However, as more and more land is purchased for urban development, even farmland is getting bought up by developers.
“And with construction and stuff they’ll go into the burrow,” Murray said. “And then say the graders come through to grade the land and it ends up grading the burrows and the owls."
Murray says that developers are good at informing their organization when they spot burrowing owls, and the public helps as well. Birders like watching the owls and are quick to inform Wild at Heart when a construction project is underway.
But as Phoenix grows, the amount of habitat available to wildlife shrinks.
“The general Phoenix area is expanding so much, that this is obviously one story on how we are impacting wildlife,” Murray said. “There are so many others.”
Like links in a chain, the burrowing owl is just one vital part of the environment.
“And they just have the right to, I guess, be in this world just as much as most of us,” Wrieden said.
