Group Advises Against Careless Trash Disposal Over Burrows of Threatened Owl Species

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has listed the Florida burrowing owl as threatened. Lately, a conservation group has been appealing to citizens to make sure their garbage disposal won't cover the burrows of threatened owl species.

3,500 burrowing owls live in Cape Coral, according to Pasha Donaldson, vice president of Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife. Donaldson could not confirm how Hurricane Ian affected the birds.

However, she is aware of a method by which locals can assist the storm-surviving animals in staying alive.

Donaldson asked people to refrain from dumping trash on top of the owl species' threatened burrows.

Mindful Waste Disposal

The burrowing owl inhabits burrows that it has dug for itself, as well as drainage culverts that are at the ends of driveways, beneath porches, or in the spot where a post once stood. According to Donaldson, it could be fatal to trap the owls inside their holes for the weeks or even just days it takes for the hurricane Ian-made trash mounds to be removed.

Beyond a general interest in the welfare of animals, Donaldson, together with the other 300 wildlife group members, have an extra-special reason to care about the owls. Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife has spent around $450,000 buying about four dozen residential plots and is almost always looking to buy more.

In some areas of the city, a patchwork sanctuary has been established for burrowing owls and gopher tortoises after they were either found there or transported there.

Sweeping Storms

Donaldson said Many of the white PVC posts that volunteers use to mark the location of an owl mini-habitat were swept away by the storm. These are typically on a residential property that the group purchased before a house could be built, and they then allowed the owls to dig their tunnels.

Since 2002, the group of 300 members has been building the sanctuary, which is home to owls and tortoises. The group focuses on gopher tortoises and burrowing owls because both creatures burrow into the ground for protection. It also helps that the majority of the lots are easy-to-dig sandy spoil scooped out from the bay bottom during the 1950s when the city was established.

The annual festival of the group is legendary now, and it will be held in February of the following year. On February 23, 2023, Rotary Park will host the 21st Annual Burrowing Owl Festival and Wildlife and Environmental Exposition, WUSF Public Media reports.

To raise funds for the nonprofit, the group Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife is requesting the general public to make donations that can be auctioned off through their donation form.

Burrowing Owls

Small, sandy-colored burrowing owls with brilliant yellow eyes live underground in holes in the ground, called burrows, which they have dug for themselves or have taken over from prairie dogs, ground squirrels, or tortoises. They are primarily insect and rodent hunters, and they inhabit deserts, grasslands, and other open habitats.

According to All About Birds, it is due to habitat change caused by humans, a decrease in ground squirrels, prairie dogs, and other factors, their population has drastically decreased.