How to protect owls in your backyard

By Amy Chillag | CNN

Atlanta  — The plight of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped New York’s Central Park Zoo last year, showed just how tough it is to survive in a world altered by humans.

The gorgeous creature with a six-foot wing span, piercing orange eyes and tufted ears captivated the world as he flew freely throughout Manhattan. Flaco fans posted social media updates every time they sighted him soaring, landing and catching prey, sparking an intense love affair.

But then it was over. After a year on the lam, Flaco died after flying into a Manhattan high rise. Crying emojis dominated social media. The reactions almost seemed outsized – but paying attention to nature will do that to a person. We had come to know Flaco, in a way. A necropsy showed he had also ingested a potentially lethal amount of rat poison.

Falling for birds – why we are attracted to owls

The attention to Flaco’s life and death isn’t an anomaly. During the pandemic, people who had never been interested in the wildlife in their own backyards began to take notice.

Owls’ popularity has soared in the US along with the number of Americans engaged in birdwatching. A survey by the US Fish and Wildlife Service found a whopping 96 million people now take part in observing or photographing birds in parks or their backyards. That’s double the birdwatching going on just eight years ago.

But there’s something particularly special about owls people seem to appreciate.

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“Maybe it’s because they look like us,” says, Denver Holt with the Owl Research Institute.

“They’ve got a big head; they have the symmetry of the eyes, nose and mouth,” muses Holt. “We tend to gravitate to animals with big, round eyes.”

Holt says owls are one of the most widely recognized groups of animals in the world. “They have been so since prehistoric times. In the caves of France, there are etchings of owls scratched on the cave walls.”

And, he says, they make such cool sounds – hooting, tooting, and trilling. They help humans with pests, he says, eating an average of six mice or rats a night. And they’re beautiful.

“Often with bright yellow eyes, it’s fascinating how these birds can hunt in the dark- their vision is amazing at night,”  says David Wiedenfeld, Senior Conservation Scientist with the American Bird Conservancy.

“If you look at their feather patterns, (they’re) very intricate,” Wiedenfeld says. “Owls have special feathers that are softer than a lot of birds. They make almost no sound in flight,” so they can surprise their prey.

Owls are losing habitat, but all is not lost

Sadly, many species of owls are declining with some highly threatened, says Wiedenfeld.

Of 19 owl species found in the United States, more than half are losing populations – a similar trend to all birds. The biggest reasons are habitat loss from climate change and human land use, collisions (especially during migrations) and pesticides that kill insects and rodents that owls rely on, according to the American Bird Conservancy.

“We have to start making sure we keep the habitat for the owl,” says Wiedenfeld.

Old-growth forests are dwindling in the US and Canada because of the high value of timber, a major reason for the huge drop in spotted owl populations, according to the American Bird Conservancy.

Open grasslands are shrinking where the tiny burrowing owl makes its home nesting in underground burrows.

Where it was once plentiful, the Burrowing Owl’s numbers have plummeted in Florida.

“Florida is largely turning into condominiums,” Wiedenfeld tells CNN.

The lack of open grassland has also impacted the short-eared owl, whose population has decreased an estimated 65 percent since 1970, according to the Audubon Society. “Much of that grassland is being used for agriculture – corn, soybeans, wheat,” says Wiedenfeld. The American Bird Conservancy is working with farmers to set aside some undisturbed land for nature.

The snowy owl

People who’d never birdwatched before have flocked to snowy owl sightings over the years, says Holt, the owl researcher. But their future also looks dim.

The snowy owl has lost half its population in the past 50 years, according to the State of the Birds 2022 report. Holt has been tracking them for more than three decades in Montana and their breeding grounds in Canada.

Last year, he and his fellow field researchers found zero nests. “It’s disappointing. Each year you go up with hopes the lemming population is high (their food source) and Snowy Owls will make a rebound. You get there, and you just don’t find nests.”

Owl experts say they don’t know exactly what’s causing the Snowy Owl’s decline, but the American Bird Conservancy says climate change is likely affecting their prey, as well as collisions with vehicles, communications towers, wind turbines and airplanes.

Seven things you can do to help save owls

1. Keep large, older trees