At the beginning of May I got a call from a guy who worked for the town of Buckeye, AZ. He said he knew there was a pair of Burrowing Owls located on a site that was about to be graded. He said he contacted the company but no one responded to him.
My initial response was "crap". I have never had to deal with Burrowing Owls so I wasn't sure what to do. All I knew was that the construction company had to stop, these owls are federally protected. So I called the company and let them know that they would need a permit from US Fish and Wildlife Services to allow them to hire biologists to remove those owls and their babies. Of course they were a little confused and didn't necessarily trust me. I told the woman I would go to the site the next morning to see the owls for myself and then we would go from there.
Here is what I did next: "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". What do I do, oh my god, what do I do? Here is what I did; I called Melanie. She is also a biologist with Liberty and shes an intensely hard worker. She agreed to join me at the site. When I picked her up she was ready. She had been on the web all night and had so much info my head was spinning. She knew it all and made us look like old pros at what we were about to do. Thank goodness for her.
We got to the site and indeed there were owls. A pair, and this time of the year that means a nest. We met with the development owner and the construction company manager. We explained the options and what needed to happen and they were totally agreeable. We roped off a 100 ft radius around the burrow. The crew was not allowed to touch it until we gave the OK.
The burrow
Our main option was to build an artificial burrow system at a neighboring golf course. Since there was going to be a lot of development around the owls, the golf course was all that was left. We needed to get the Ok from the golf course, so we set up a meeting with the manager.
Our second option, the one we did not want to do, was to trap the owls, take them to Liberty for a few months and then release them to a new area with artificial burrows and hope they stay. The first option allowed to the owls to stay in the area they had claimed and learned and hunt in. However, they would need to find the new home we made for them.
The morning we came back to the site, our jaws dropped. Just days earlier the lot was desert and today it was plowed and graded with a small circle in the middle left for the owls.
Notice the small area of desert on the left
The meeting went great and the golf course was happy to help us out. They even agreed to lend us a small digger to help us dig our holes. It was all falling into place. Very exciting considering neither of us had ever done anything like this before. We planned to construct the burrows the next day and recruited our bosses Jan and Terry. Lucky for us the digger made it so easy for us, it took no time at all.
The artificial burrow
Finished product
All we had left to do was to make sure the company had the permit to remove the owls and then collapse the burrows and take any eggs or babies in the nest. Its a difficult place to be emotionally. On one hand I know we are doing a good thing. We stopped the crew from burying the owls alive. But at the same time we are stealing their young and destroying their home. All we can do is hope they find those new burrows.
We came back one final time. We came to collapse the burrows and take any eggs or babies. We started bright and early and started digging out burrows we thought were not the owls. We needed to excavate all nearby burrows. Here in the desert the ground squirrels like to dig lots and lots of burrows. They look like chipmunks. Anyway we narrowed it down to the final one. As we dug one of the adults came back and yelled at us. We kinda figured at that point that the other adult was in the burrow. We had to be careful not to harm anything in the burrow. We would dig a bit and then we would peak in the hole to see what was there.
Getting closer to the nest
Finally, as we got closer, Mel caught a glimpse of the adult in the burrow along with one egg and several dead mice. We got the egg and then backed off to allow the adult to come out.
After about 5 minutes she popped out. We chased her off and frantically caved in the burrow. She was obviously disoriented and confused. It was heartbreaking.
Once we were done I ran over to the foreman to let him know his crew could move in. Within minutes the earth movers were lined up and ready. Progress sucks. We saw her off in the field a ways clearly unsure of what was all happening. What a horrible shock to go to your home and find it gone including your egg.
When we drove past the site an hour later there was nothing left. They would have buried that owl alive. She would never have had time to get out of that hole. Scary thought. I hope the next thing I tell you helps you choose to never go to McDonald's again. The push to get the owls out so quickly was because the pad, just about where the owls were, was purchased by McDonald's and time is money. So you can think of those poor owls, searching for a new home, the next time you're crave an egg mcmuffin, or some other piece of shit sandwich from that place.
I will return soon to see if the owls have found the new burrows. If not I will feel terrible and I just hope they have found a better place and started a new family.
-Nina
P.S. see more pics here.
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