Top Forty Under 40: Owl conservationist dreams of the day she’s out of a job
Editor’s note: Every week in this space with Top Forty Under 40 we profile businessperson under the age of 40 who is finding success in their career and making a difference. The series is presented by BDO Accountants and Consultants, Kelowna Chamber of Commerce and The Daily Courier. If you know of someone deserving, nominate them through the form at KelownaChamber.org.
Lauren Meads would love nothing more than to put herself out of a job. “Definitely, that’s the goal of all conservation,” said the 36-year-old executive director of the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of B.C.
“If there’s no job for me that means we’ve successfully reintroduced a sustainable wild population of burrowing owls to the Okanagan’s grasslands.”
If that happens, Meads would move onto another species to save.
After all, conservation and helping animals and birds is in her blood.
But the sad reality is, although great strides have been made bolstering the Okanagan’s burrowing owl population, the little bird of prey isn’t likely to regain the foothold it had in the Southern Interior’s grassland’s heyday.
“There’s climate change, human encroachment and not enough badgers (which dig holes the owls use for nesting),” said Meads of why the deck is stack against burrowing owls.
“But we’ll keep working.”
The burrowing owl became extinct in B.C. in the 1980s, which is when the society was set up with some breeding pairs from Washington state and Oregon to start the process of reintroduction in this province.
Currently the society, with facilities in Oliver, Kamloops and Langley, has 17 captive pairs of founder owls that breed and each raise about eight owlets every year.
When those owlets are almost a year old they are released into the wild.
Usually about 100 owlets every year make it to release.
They join the 30 to 60 older, previously released owls that migrate to California and Mexico for the winter and then return to the Okanagan.
Returns from migration are always a fraction of the original population because some owls end up staying year-round in California or Mexico, and others decide to make their summer homes in Washington state or Oregon.
If a released owls hook up with a returning owl to mate, it is left on its own for its new spouse to learn the ropes in the wild.
If newly-released owls want to stick together, they need help and will spend four weeks in an open cage to protect them from predators and will be offered human-dug, instead of badger-dug, holes for a nest.
All released owls wear two bands, one from the society and one from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife department, which co-operates with the society to keep track of owls.
All told, there are about 160 burrowing owls, or 80 pairs, in the wild every summer in the Southern Interior. “That’s a moderate success,” said Meads. “For complete success I’d say we need 200 pairs returning on their own every, creating a sustainable population. I don’t know if that can be done without us releasing some birds every year and digging holes for them because there needs to be badger recovery too.”
The tiny owl, it only weighs 160 grams, is integral to the Okanagan’s grassland ecosystem.
It hunts and eats small rodents and grasshoppers, which is important to keep the small mammal and insect populations in check.
In turn, the little owl is food for hawks and bigger owls.
The Okanagan community has embraced burrowing owl conservation in a big way.
“This little owl is a symbol of Canada’s only desert that surrounds Oliver and Osoyoos,” said Meads.
“It doesn’t hurt that they are just so darn cute. They have forward-looking eyes (unlike the side eyes of many owls) that make their faces look almost human. And when they are in the wild, they like to live in colonies and look out for each other, especially during breeding season.”
After earning her bachelor of science at Simon Fraser University, Meads when on to take a masters of science in applied animal behaviour and welfare from the University of Edinburgh.
At the time, Meads was more interested in exotic cats because she’d just spent a summer in Florida working with them.
However, a barn owl named Oden at Edinburgh Zoo, where Meads was doing practicum work, changed all that.
Upon return to Canada, she landed a job helping with a breeding program for northern spotted owls, which lead to her finding out the job with the burrowing owl society. It’s not all owls all the time for Meads. The Kaleden resident is also passionate about outrigger canoeing on Skaha Lake and parenting five cats with her fiance.