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Advocate Gives a Hoot
Professor Works to Protect Burrowing Owls
By Jennifer Olds

Jack Bath has always been fascinated by owls, especially burrowing owls, Athene Cunicularia.

While hiking in Chino Hills one day, he stopped to admire several owls nesting in abandoned squirrel burrows behind a building site. As he watched, a bulldozer deliberately razed the burrows, killing the owls in its path. Bath tried to stop the bulldozer, but couldn't. The scene has haunted him ever since.

These days, the biological sciences professor at Cal Poly Pomona is well known to planning departments throughout the area, working tirelessly to inform developers and city planners about the importance of conserving the dwindling owl population. He has come to be known as "the owl man."

"I consult with cities throughout the Inland Empire on owl awareness and conservation. You might say it's my life work," Bath says.

The burrowing owls are known as nature's pest control, and subsist on a diet of mice, large insects and other small rodents. They have been named a species of special concern by state and federal governments, according to Bath. The owl population dipped shrply during the last 20 years due to rapid urbanization and agricultural growth. And in 1971 , the burrowing owl was included in the National Audubon Society's first Blue List of bird species undergoing noncyclic population declines and extreme habitat loss.

Bath attributes an ill-advised owl relocation program as a death sentence for the non-migratory birds. Developers have trapped the owls and released them into unfamiliar surroundings. Typically learning from their parents for at least three owl generations, the burrowing owls suffer when stripped of familiar habitats. They not only lose their parents, but also their burrows where they created colonies. Rattlesnakes and other previously unknown predators also pose hazards.
Biological science professor
Jack Bath is known as "the owl man."

"We, the burrowing owl people, requested that the Department of Fish and Game take steps so as not to lose this rare and beautiful species," says Bath, who is also the director of the San Bernardino chapter of the Endangered Habitats League.

Thanks to Bath and other owl advocates, owl locations are reported to an official Department of Fish and Game (DFG) database in Sacramento, and there are several programs dedicated to tracking and protecting burrowing owls.

The city of Chino is in the process of locating funding for a burrowing owl and/or water fowl habitat south of Edison Avenue and north of Chino Hills Parkway. Burrowing owls currently nest in drainage areas along Cypress Creek and are a familiar sight as they perch on the fencelines along Eucalyptus Avenue.

For more information burrowing owls, go to www.birdpop.org/burrowing.htm.
To report a location of nesting owls, contact the Wildlife and Habitat Data Analysis DFG branch by filling out a California Native Species Field Survey at www.dfg.ca.gov/whdab/html/by_program.html.

  
Panorama is published by the Office of Public Affairs at Cal Poly Pomona.
Questions or comments? Please email publicaffair@csupomona.edu.