Many questions puzzle even the most seasoned philosophers, like what came first: the chicken or the egg? Why aren’t the dishes done? Where are my car keys?
For the fine folks at the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation (AIWC), the unanswered question on their minds is: how did a great horned owl get stuck in a pile of poop?
You read that right. Last month, a cattle farmer found the bird in critical condition, stuck in a pile of manure in one of his barns in Picture Butte, a town about 200 kilometres south of Calgary.
How long the owl was stuck or how it got stuck in the first place remains a mystery, but the AIWC has a theory.
“Our guess is this owl was hunting a mouse or a vole or something close to the ground, and ended up crashing into the pile of manure and couldn’t get itself out,” Scottie Potter, communications coordinator for the AIWC, told Town and Country Today.
The owl was very underweight for a couple of reasons. For starters, great horned owls have fast metabolisms, eating almost 5 percent of their body weight per day.
Potter thinks the bird was stuck for a couple of days or more; enough time for the owl’s metabolism to burn through its fat stores.
The bird’s weight loss was also accelerated by poor thermoregulation. Most birds, including owls, rely on downy feathers to insulate and keep warm.
If a bird’s downy feathers are covered, it cannot thermoregulate. Think of it like trying to warm up in the winter when your clothes are wet.
“The huge problem right now is that there’s manure in the (owl’s) down, so the really fine thermoregulatory feathers… we’re hopeful that we won’t have to do a full bath,” explained Potter.
According to Potter, giving baths to non-aquatic birds like owls is incredibly stressful and can lead to death for the animal.
The owl was found in rough shape but the AIWC says the bird’s recovery is going well. The Institute hopes the owl will be ready for release in the next month.
We Are the Biggest Threat
The AIWC is no stranger to great horned owls, hoot are regular patients at the Institute.
“We actually get more great horned owls per year than any other bird of prey. Typically this time of year we have between two and four,” said Potter.
Great horned owls are among the best hunters in the world. They hunt at dusk, flying low over the ground to capture their prey, which includes small mammals like mice, rats, rabbits, skunks, and more.
These owls are pretty badass so it’s not surprising that they were voted our province’s official bird in 1977. Great horned owls have no natural predators, so why are they frequent tenants at the AIWC?
Most owls admitted to rehabilitation centres are the result of human-caused problems. These problems include being shot, electrocuted, caught in barbed wire, and poisoned.
The number one cause of injury or death for owls, especially great horned owls, is vehicle collisions.
“It’s because they fly very low while they’re hunting. Great horns, because they’re the most common owl, are very confident around people and they fly very, very low to the ground, which is why they end up coming into care most often,” said Potter.
Spring is right around the corner, meaning wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centres like the AIWC are going to have their hands full soon.
Come springtime, the number of animals in care increases by about 500 percent due to many animals having babies in the Spring and migratory birds passing through Alberta.
Extreme weather caused by a warming global temperature also contributes to this spike, according to Colin Weir, the managing director of the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre.
Drought in particular has caused some areas of trees in southern Alberta to become weak and easy to blow over.
“All the branches become brittle, they break off. So sometimes nests come crashing to the ground as well,” said Weir.
Next time you find yourself in deep crap, think about our great horned owl friend. Don’t give up hope and you will eventually pull through.
