Today was the day we've been waiting and planning for for months!  We finally released our first 6 families onto our first preserve!

After consulting with experts at the Zoo, we carefully picked our owls to relocate.  We decided to pick families with fledgling chicks that can't fly just yet, which would force adult parents to remain on the preserve to care for the chicks.  This will minimize the chances of abandonment of the reserve as occurred with a previous experiment, as families will have to stay until their fledglings can fly.  We're hoping their presence might attract other owls, though this is an unproven theory thus far.

We banded owls before we released them.  I hope they stay and find happiness here, and in the process, maybe they will heal this scarred and damaged land.

Ah, the owls have the most furtive, beautiful, deep eyes...

Currently owls that we have rescued from construction projects have been housed in the San Diego Zoo, to which we have taken a few field trips to monitor.  The owls have the most amazing way of speaking with their eyes and expressions, and even though we know they're not human (and their expressions probably don't mean what we think they do), we're really starting to get attached to these cute little guys.  They're all healthy now, flying and posing and twisting their heads in that famous way they have of doing it.  I can't wait to get them out onto their new homes, so they can fly around without the confines of a cage again.  We're continuing to plan the relocation of these owls onto the preserve burrows, and also starting to think about the next phase of our project, discussing ideas and potential activities branching off the theme of burrowing owl protection.  After all our involvement this year, we've only become more attached to this sweet little bird, and maybe we'd like to try our hand at changing some construction legislation.

We removed the cage tops on the pie today, releasing some squirrels onto the preserve to continue creating new burrows for owls that will hopefully be colonizing the area soon.  As it turned out, simply releasing the squirrels was much more complicated than we had envisioned at first when creating this plan, and we had to account for the gap that their absence would cause in the environment from which we'd first rescued them.  Our solution was to release some and remove some back to their environments if their populations there had sufficiently low rates of reproduction.  There were very few squirrels that we had to take back, though, since squirrels' reproduction rates are so outlandishly high.  Still other squirrels have been removed to await the opening of another preserve where we can transport them to create yet another owl colony.  We'd only envisioned successfully creating one, but from the way things are going, it looks like we might be able to carry our project over to helping even more ecosystems!  That means we'll get to help even more owls and squirrels, and even more regions of California recover!

We also conducted a final count of the amount of squirrels we have relocated on both preserves.  The total is a little over 350 squirrels rescued!  We were so busy having fun with squirrels and the environment we totally didn't notice just how many cages and squirrels we'd moved.  We wish the released squirrels the best of luck in their new homes! 

The burrows are finished!

We were feeding squirrels again and noticed that the burrows now had the characteristic mound beside their openings, along with the appropriate depth markings.  We could see the tubing leading to the "living room" we had installed beneath the large, open-bottom cages in which the squirrels were kept to encourage them to burrow in these locations.  Three of our members actually ran into the preserve and started doing victory dances.  Honestly, one could not imagine how much these holes mean to us.  It is the first thing we have finished in our great plan of action for an owl colony, and a sign that our plans can produce real results, however minor at the moment.

We quickly made plans for the next step, and now we will be assembling cages and planning for the capture of endangered owls now to inhabit these burrows.

Today we checked up on our squirrels on the "pie" area of the reserve staked out just for their cages and burrows.  The burrows are already mostly finished, and squirrels are readily using the tubing we attached as a living room in each cage.  We added a few more squirrels we caught and fed and watered the squirrels, noting the appetite and thirst of each cage in relation to the amount of squirrels on them.

We're totally exhausted after these months of continuous work, but there's no time to slow down.  Somehow, just the mention of another animal successfully rescued, the fixing of another piece of equipment, or the discovery of an optimal bait for the traps energizes us despite our weariness.  Just being out in the preserve is enough to transform me from tired to eager.  The beauty of nature never fails to awe me - the great expanses of yellow brush, the tall majestic mountains, the calls of beautiful birds across the hills.  The damaged preserve is already improving, though we've only cleared away a bit of flammable shrub and introduced a few squirrels.

We collected all squirrel cages today and counted up our amount of squirrels caught.  We successfully snagged over 200 squirrels!  Today we fitted them with radio collars and noted their relationships to one another and separated them into different cages.  We also dyed characteristic numbers onto their backs with special vegetable-based dyes to identify them and so we can match squirrels to cages.  We were careful to note their origins as well.

This is such an amazing opportunity, and I can hardly believe, even after all these months, that we are really accomplishing so much in our community.  It has truly changed our perception of naturalists and nature in general - it is far more delicate and intricate and wonderful than we'd previously thought.  Our need to protect it is growing day by day, and our determination and passion for the environment has increased dramatically.  I can only hope that the difference it makes on the burrowing owl population will be just as large, if not larger!

Another field trip today!  I think the words of our core member Catherine Nguyen really embody our work today, so I'll leave you with her words.

Today we drove down to the Sweetwater Reserve. We were checking the traps to see if any ground squirrels had been caught. The ground squirrels would help the burrowing owls by giving them pre-dug holes to nest in. Unfortunately, none of the traps contained the ground squirrels this week, which either meant they were smart enough to avoid them, or they have left the premises. With any luck it would only be the former. Not much success today, but at least the reserve is full of life. We saw many birds and some deer roaming around. I hope the ground squirrels are roaming around too!

-Journal Entry by member Catherine Nguyen

Fieldwork, fieldwork, fieldwork.  This project idea is moving along so fast, I'm half-expecting it to start flying at this speed.  Every time we go out into the field, as we approach a cage, my heart starts beating with the anticipation of seeing what's in the cage.  Perhaps there will be a rescued owl, or a squirrel, or animals we haven't even imagined catching.  Once, we got a beautiful ring-necked pheasant with magnificent feathers.  It was very frightened and shot out of the trap as soon as we lifted the door.  However, it was unharmed, since these are humane traps, and it was truly an amazing creature close up.

We've also been setting up traps and monitoring cages.  I'm always reminded over and over of why I love this activity - seeing nature's beauty close up, interacting with professional studiers of nature, and being able to see our ideas take shape and make a difference on the environment.  And of course, it is such a fun experience.  We joke and laugh as we work, and some activities were like games when we first started.  For instance, we swapped out different bait until we found the most effective ones for each different region and species.  It was very interesting guessing what squirrels and owls would like to eat based on where they lived.  It seemed that apples were a particular squirrel favorite near garbage dumps.  There was one squirrel in a trash bin that was clever enough to dig out the bait from outside the cage.  He kept stealing the bait and never got caught, so we moved the cage to another region to target a less wily squirrel.

To quote one member after the third time the trap had been sprung, "Geez, MENSA needs to take a look at that squirrel's mind."

Lately, we've been working in the field a lot, and I thought I'd post a quick description of our exact work.  Most of it is similar to what we did today, alternated with checking traps that we've already set for rescued animals (as well as unwanted ones).

Today, we drove down to Otay Mesa, where we went onto a United States Fishing & Game Federal Reserve (Otay Mesa Reserve) that was formerly a privately owned ranch. We went into a trailer and helped set up and assemble more Tomahawk cages to trap squirrels, including water bottles, tubing, and preparing radio colors and dye for squirrels we catch.  We will dye numbers onto their backs for easy identification.  Don't worry, these dyes won't hurt the squirrels at all!  They're vegetable-based rather than chemical-based, so they are animal-safe and will wear off from the squirrels' fur later.

After assembling everything, we took some cages out into the reserve and designated locations for them.  We took other cages into areas undergoing development that is destroying owl homes to capture owls.

Another great discussion today before heading out into the field.  We've started rescuing squirrels and moving them into acclimation facilities, and today we were just checking our traps.  On the way, we talked about how we would define success in these early stages of our project.  Here is what we decided:

HOW WE MEASURE SUCCESS

1) Short term – squirrels captured, their acclimation to this area (are they comfortable?)
2) Long term – burrowing owls stay on preserve and produce and successfully raise offspring there