Arizona-based nonprofit Wild at Heart has been relocating burrowing owls to Martin Farm in Marana for the past eight years, with the goal of creating a safe haven for them.
Greg Clark is the nonprofit’s Burrowing Owl Habitat Coordinator and has been working with burrowing owls for more than two decades.
“There used to be millions of burrowing owls,” Clark said.
However, according to a report from Stanford University , their numbers have declined by 33% from 1956 to 2016, but Clark is determined to help change that.
“So what we’re trying to do is figure out how to come up with a program and strategy,” Clark said. “So that eventually burrowing owls can live anywhere where there’s open space and there’s enough food for them to make a living.”
Many of the owls lose their homes to new developments.
“So Wild at Heart goes in there before the site is bladed and we get any burrowing owls that are living underground at that site out of trouble and into the care facility,” the bird enthusiast said.