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The Houston Nature Center has had a heavy
emphasis on owls since its inception in 2001. Thanks to a Great Horned Owl
named Alice, the Center's only live animal, humans are finally beginning to
understand the language of her species a little bit better.
Alice lives and works with her handler,
Houston Nature Center Director/Naturalist Karla (Kinstler) Bloem. As a human
imprint, Alice views Karla as her mate an thus directs her vocalizations toward
her. In her quest to better understand Alice, Karla found that no one had
ever studied the vocalizations of the Great Horned Owl despite its status as a common species.
Thus began Karla's Great Horned Owl Vocal
Study. She began recording Alice and the wild owls in her rural yard who
woke her up in the middle of
the night. She also made some recordings at wild nests.
Karla presented her preliminary research
findings at the World Owl
Conference in The Netherlands in 2007. Her paper was published in the
conference proceedings as a special edition of Ardea, the journal of the
Netherlands Ornithologists' Union.
But in order to document the complete vocal repertoire
of the species,
more detailed recordings around the nest site before, during, and after
incubation and rearing were necessary, and Karla found out how difficult it was
to make these observations.
To this end the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources have granted Karla permits
to breed a permanently injured pair of Great Horned Owls. They will be
housed in a breeding cage outfitted with remote cameras and microphones so they
can be observed without being disturbed. A release training cage will be attached
to the breeding cage so the young owls can naturally disperse from their parents
and strengthen their flight muscles before eventually being released.
The goal is to
have audio/video feeds from the cages streaming live on the internet so people from
around the world can help make observations of the owls, their behaviors, and
their vocalizations.
This captive breeding situation will allow
the documentation of the complete vocal repertoire of the Great Horned Owl and
associated behaviors, tracking the development of the territorial hoot in young
owls, determining the stability of the territorial hoot of individual owls over
time, identifying individuals by their territorial hoot, noting any inherited
territorial hoot characteristics, and describing the differences in the
territorial hoots of males and females. This research will help future
Great Horned Owl researchers understand their study subjects much better, and
may prevent the need for capturing and radio tracking owls to identify
individual birds. It will most certainly be a long-term project.
The breeding owls for this project are ready
and waiting at the
Raptor Education Group in Antigo, Wisconsin until the cages are built.
These owls each have eye injures that prevent their release to the wild.
They served as foster parents for a young Great Horned Owl in 2009.
(Pictured below left to right: male, foster owlet, female.)
Retired building contractor and owl
enthusiast Roger Meyer has just
stepped up to the plate as the cage designer and lead builder.
Construction is underway, and you can follow the developments at
www.alicetheowl.blogspot.com.
You
can help by making a tax-deductible contribution of cash or materials
through the Friends of the Houston Nature Center. In return for your
donation, your name will appear on the breeding project website and in all
scientific publications arising from this research (unless you choose to remain
anonymous.)
You can donate using the PayPal Donate button below. A PayPal account is
not required--you can also make a donation using a credit card through the
PayPal link. Or you can mail a check (please indicate it's for the Great
Horned Owl breeding project) to:
Friends of the Houston Nature Center
PO
Box 731
Houston, MN 55943
For
more information about this project contact Karla (Kinstler) Bloem at 507-896-4668 or
nature@acegroup.cc.
Thank you for your generous support,
and follow our progress at
www.alicetheowl.blogspot.com.
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