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Community Corner

Restoring Baby Owls At The Wildlife Center

Suisun City Patch adopted a baby owl to be restored to the wild. So what needs to happen first?

The puts on a number of events throughout the year to support their efforts to restore animals to the wild. Last month the center put on a and Suisun City Patch adopted a baby raccoon and owl.

What is needed to restore a baby owl to the wild?

“I get babies of all different sizes,” said Margie Furcho, center manager. “We raise them and try to not let them know who we are, so we feed them behind a curtain.”

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Furcho has been at the wildlife center for 12 years, but grew up taking care of animals. She has also, along with her husband who is a predatory bird specialist, learned through volunteering at the UC Davis Raptor Center. She now uses her knowledge to train volunteers on how to handle the birds.

She said two main components to making sure an owl is able to return to the wild are making sure they are able to hunt for their own food and fly on their own.

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“That’s the only two things that I can teach them here,” she said. “I’m not mama, where mama can take them other places and show them where the critters are hiding.”

When the owls are brought to the center, they are given liquids to rehydrate them when needed. They also are given mice to eat, since they are animals the owls would prey upon in the wild. Even weak birds are given cut up mice, so they will continue eating much of what will be their diet when released.

“We write down how many mice we feed them at night, because they only eat at night, and we write in their charts in the morning how many are left, to see if they’re eating or not.”

Furcho said it is very important that owls are kept in conditions as close to normal as possible. Talking around them is kept to a minimum, too, so they do not become too used to being around humans. The more able-bodied owls are allowed to catch the mouse workers give them to eat. Before being released, workers take the birds out to practice flying again while being connected to a harness to keep them from flying away.

“Once they’ve got most of their flight feathers, I put them outside, and they‘re eating on their own, I put them outside,” she said. “And that way they will get their own food, and be with other owls.”

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