The Western Burrowing Owl is petite, cute and silly, and conservation groups are once again calling on the country to protect them before it’s too late.
Now, more than 20 years after the formal request, California wildlife officials appear to be listening.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife recommended this week that state wildlife policymakers consider filing a petition to list the owl as an endangered or threatened species.
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This is the first of several steps that native underground nesters need to remove in order to gain protection under the state Endangered Species Act. That doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed, but it can be guaranteed.
So while the species’ fate has yet to be determined, the groups pushing for the designation are hopeful. The petition, filed in March, already has higher support than the petition launched more than 20 years ago.
“We’re in an emergency here,” said Jeff Miller, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity and the author of both petitions. “It would be a little shocking if they didn’t have some kind of protection.”
So what has changed?
Environmentalists say the situation is even more dire for owls. According to Miller, they were once one of the most common birds in the state, found “almost everywhere” in open, low-elevation grasslands.
But “our numbers have dropped to very low levels,” Miller said. As a breeding species, “once you lose it from a specific location, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get it back.”
There are about 25 pairs of breeding fish around San Francisco Bay, he said, while about 30 years ago there were about 1,000 pairs in the region’s South Bay alone.
Miller describes owls as “eggs on legs” because of their round heads and bodies sitting on long, skinny legs. They are only 10 inches tall, have bright yellow eyes and, as their name suggests, live underground. “They look a little silly,” Miller said.
It’s indeed “a bit silly”.
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Stupidity aside, environmentalists say erroneous assumptions about the owl’s behavior have been corrected and the political winds have changed, fueling hopes the petition will succeed.
Habitat loss remains the greatest concern. Developers often focus on owl habitats in condominiums and golf courses.
Spreading development and control efforts targeting ground squirrels, whose burrows lend themselves to owl burrows, have driven owls out of the grasslands where they live.
Pamela Flick, a co-applicant with Defenders of Wildlife California, said the best available science shows that nearly 30% of the state’s owl habitat has been lost or is close to being lost, which she called “really, really concerning.” Other petitioners include the Burrowing Owl Conservancy, the Urban Bird Foundation, the Central Valley Ornithological Club and the San Bernardino and Santa Clara Valley Audubon Societies.
When the first petition was filed in 2003, it was argued that owls in population strongholds such as the Imperial Valley were able to fly to other parts of the state, adding to the dwindling population.
This turns out to be incorrect. Miller said decades of tagging and tracking owls have shown that if they are driven out of an area, they often don’t set up shop and breed elsewhere.
Two key players in the petition’s future are the state Fish and Game Commission and the California Department of Wildlife. The department implements and enforces rules established by the Commission and conducts studies to inform Commission decisions.
Miller said it was a “very different political climate” when his group and others filed the first petition.
Earlier this year, he told The Times the council had made hunting and fishing a top priority when it was formed. He said there was now greater emphasis on protecting vulnerable species.
Miller said there was another twist: Instead of pushing for statewide protections, petitioners focused on the most at-risk owl populations. Conservationists are seeking endangered status for the owl in the Bay Area and in west-central and southwestern California. They are seeking the threatened status of residents of the Central Valley and southern desert regions.
Scoping can also reduce resistance. Some of the areas where owls fare best—such as the Imperial Valley and the southern Central Valley—are in manipulated farmland. “We don’t want to conflict with financial interests if we don’t have to,” Miller said.
Ultimately, the decision will be made by the Fish and Game Commission. It can choose to list certain groups, or not list them, or list them statewide. These birds are not listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Conservation groups expect the committee to vote on whether to accept the petition on Oct. 10. 18-month status review moves forward.
