Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - In 2021, the Friends of Cortes Island received funding from the Habitat Stewardship Program to seek out the elusive Western Screech Owls. This research is being guided by the Pacific Megascops Research Alliance, and biologists from the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship are part of the team. The first season was spring 2022.
According to Cortes Island biologist Sabina Leader Mense:
“We know they're here, why aren't they talking to us? The research results we got: not a hoot, not a peep, not a call. Nothing but lots and lots of questions.”
“The autonomous recording units, the ARUs, are just being analyzed now. Whatever was picked up by them during February and March of this year, that information's coming to us within the next month.”
“FOCI's been very successful at getting funding, again from the Habitat Stewardship Program, for two more years. So we'll be going out in February and March 2023, and we will have the information from the autonomous recording units. It is really important to know if there were Western Screech Owls calling at times when they just simply weren't answering us.”
“People are seeing the birds in the Discovery Islands. While we were doing transects down here in February and March, there were Western Screech Owls up on Sonora Island calling in behind some greenhouses in the Diamond Bay area. There was a Western Screech Owl predation by Ravens observed at Port Maurelle on Maurelle Island.”
