It sounds too good to be true.  Owls returning to the habitat from where they had just been evicted.  Owls re-establishing themselves just in time for breeding season and able to contribute to a declining Bay Area burrowing owl population.  Incredible!

Incredible is indeed the word and I must say perfectly describes the inconceivable antics of those directly responsible for a 27% drop in numbers since 1993.  It’s all about maintaining the land burrowing owl free so as to avoid the infiltration of breeding pairs that may play house this spring and prevent construction of MUCH needed homes.  Oh, but perhaps I spoke to soon as we are again being warned that the housing market recovery is still quite unstable.  As reported today in the San Francisco Chronicle, “Sales of previously owned homes plunged in January to their lowest level since summer, providing fresh evidence that high unemployment and tight lending standards are outweighing the government’s attempts to prop up the market.”

But, I believe it is not about whether houses are actually needed as opposed to keeping conditional use permits with the city of Antioch active.  I’m sure a trip to City Hall next week will confirm my thoughts.  In the meantime, owls in the form of decoys have been installed throughout the landscape in an effort to prevent the return of ground squirrels and burrowing owls.  According to the CDFG approved eviction plan,

“After western burrowing owls and California ground squirrels are removed from the project site, monitoring will commence to ensure that burrowing owls do not become re-established on the project site.  Monitoring will commence initially weekly for the first 60 days, and bi-monthly through the commencement of construction of homes on the finished lots.  As the project site will be cleared of all owls through implementation of this eviction plan, and continuously monitored, any owl that shows up on the site would be a very recent occupant and would not be nesting.  Accordingly, if a western burrowing owl shows up outside the passive eviction timeframe (October 1st to February 1st) eviction procedures would immediately commence again as approved by the CDFG. “

A few of the decoys installed to keep owls and squirrels away

And with the recent news from the Attorney General citing a conflict of interest, it is again up to the People to provide government agency oversight and ensure laws enacted to protect wildlife are actually being followed.  Here’s a hint…they are not.

Tags: Antioch Burrowing Owls, Blue Ridge Development, burrowing owls, Kiper Homes

This entry was posted by Scott on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 12:11 pm and is filed under birds, conservation, Human Threats, Owls, Urban sprawl, Wildlife, Wildlife management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.