Mountain View: Mayday for Burrowing Owls

Burrowing Owls at Shoreline: Teresa Cheng

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday: Burrowing Owls at risk in Mountain View

Synopsis

The City of Mountain View has been on the front lines of Burrowing Owl conservation and recovery efforts since 2012. This summer, City staff dropped the ball. Biologists have been absent from Shoreline since July and habitat enhancement, as well as critical Burrowing Owl recovery programs, has been either suspended or badly mismanaged. Despite the documented commitment of the City Council to the Burrowing Owls and to biodiversity, the future of Burrowing Owls and other vulnerable species at Shoreline is now uncertain. In 2023, there were only 51 adult Burrowing Owls (forming 21 successful breeding pairs) in the entire South Bay Area. Of these, 17 adult Owls including 5 successful pairs were at Shoreline. We cannot allow the protection of Shoreline Burrowing Owls to erode further.

What is happening?

Mountain View’s previously adopted and outstanding “Burrowing Owl Preservation Plan” and “Shoreline Wildlife Management Plan” had been implemented at Shoreline Park by Mountain View’s expert staff biologist, Mr. Philip Higgins, as well as an additional biologist and scores of devoted volunteers. These programs focus on improving habitat and monitoring Burrowing Owls populations. At the same time, the biologists have been implementing synergistic Burrowing Owl conservation programs which are sponsored and funded by Santa Clara Valley Habitat Agency. The most successful of these programs is the Juvenile Burrowing Owl Overwintering program. 

This program captures juvenile Owls during the breeding season, protects them over the winter, then places genetically-matched pairs in small enclosures to allow them to breed. Some of the young Owls from the enclosures are then released, and some are taken back into the program for overwintering or captive breeding. Pairs of Owls are matched to increase genetic diversity and thus, increase the viability of the Burrowing Owl population and the success of the recovery program in the South Bay. In the spring of 2024, several pairs of wild Burrowing Owls nested at Shoreline. There were also 3 enclosures, each containing a breeding pair of Burrowing Owls from the Overwintering program.

But since Mid-July, the Burrowing Owl biologists have been absent from Shoreline. The consequences of this unexplained absence is consequential:

  • The pairs of Owls in the enclosures, with their offspring, remained constrained weeks after they should have been released or retained for the Overwintering program, and

  • Monitoring of wild Burrowing Owls nests has stopped and thus, long term local and regional Burrowing Owl research was interrupted.

In a letter to Council, City staff suggest that they cannot discuss issues related to the month-long absence of staff biologists at Shoreline due to confidential personnel matters. They assert that they have been continuously implementing the Burrowing Owl Plan and the Wildlife Management Plan. We do not believe that this is an accurate representation of what has transpired at Shoreline since mid-July.

Furthermore, it seems that senior staff plans to replace the expert full-time staff biologist position with consulting services to provide project evaluations, and with potential agreements with the Habitat Agency or consultants for other Burrowing Owl services. However, a full-time staff position is a requirement of the Burrowing Owl Preservation Plan, and through the years we have seen many cases in which burrows were bulldozed even though Owls may have been underground. 

The welfare, care, and preservation of the Burrowing Owl population at Shoreline requires expertise based on academic and professional education and in-depth, day to day knowledge of the park, the kind of knowledge that comes from being there.

What you can do?

Talking Points

  • Please thank the City Council for its leadership during the past 12 years! Until this summer, Mountain View had been at the forefront of Burrowing Owl conservation and we appreciate this immensely!

  • Please ask the City Council to restore its leadership and public trust.

  • Please tell the City Council a little about yourself and why you care about Burrowing Owls and other native species at Shoreline and adjacent areas (such as Black Skimmers, White-tailed Kites, Monarch butterflies, egrets, and even jackrabbits). If you have volunteered for Shoreline conservation efforts, or love to birdwatch at Shoreline, please mention your personal connection and passion.

  • Please express to the City Council that Burrowing Owls are almost extirpated in our region. Implementation of the Mountain View Owl Preservation Plan and other conservation programs are critically needed if we are to save the owls from local extinction.

  • Please explain that the Burrowing Owls Preservation Plan and the Shoreline Wildlife Management Plan must be implemented under the supervision of a full-time biologist who is knowledgeable and passionate about the owls and other vulnerable species and who holds State and Federal permits to handle Burrowing owls. The very same Burrowing Owl biologist should also conduct any necessary monitoring, project evaluations and coordination to ensure that Owls are not inadvertently harmed.

  • Please ask the City Council how they will ensure that the action items and the requirements of the Burrowing Owls Preservation Plan and the Shoreline Wildlife Management Plan are implemented by staff.

If you are interested in a script for public comment, we are at your service! Please contact advocate@scvas.org and title your email “BUOW script please”.