Project seeks snowy owls in Wisconsin
SUAMICO - The nearshore waters of Green Bay on Thursday were locked in ice and covered with snow.
Low clouds spanned the sky like a gray, woolen blanket and squeezed out a veil of frozen mist.
If you had to prove the existence of a horizon, this wasn’t the time. The ground formed a seamless union with the sky.
“This is what they call a whiteout,” said David Brinker of Annapolis, Md., as he surveyed the wintry landscape.
Safely on a path on the Cat Island complex east of Suamico, Brinker and the rest of our group didn’t face any particular hazards.
But the conditions did pose an added challenge to our quest: find snowy owls.
The species plumage evolved to blend in with its Arctic breeding grounds. It works nicely, too, to conceal individuals that wing south in winter to snow-covered haunts in the U.S.
Still, with nine sets of eyes spread across the target rich environment of the lower bay, our group was confident it was a matter of when, not if, we’d see one or more snowies.
It would then be up to the team assembled by Brinker to safely trap and secure an owl so it could be examined, fitted with a transmitter and released.
The work was part of Project SNOWstorm, research started in late 2013 to study the habits and assist with conservation of the big, white birds.
Brinker, a native of Racine who now works as a wildlife biologist for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, founded Project SNOWstorm along with Scott Weidensaul, Mike Lanzone, Norman Smith and Steve Huy.
The work is conducted on a volunteer basis by scientists and funded by donations.
“Thank goodness snowies are so charismatic,” said Brinker, 63.
For many, the handsome birds were popularized in recent years through Harry Potter books and movies. For others, the sheer beauty, size and rarity of the birds is enough to give it “star appeal.”
Over the last four years, Project SNOWstorm has fitted 56 owls with GPS transmitters. The sophisticated solarpowered units collect data every 30 minutes and allow researchers to precisely track the birds’ movements.
At a cost of $3,000 for each device, plus several hundred dollars for a cellular data plan, the project isn’t inexpensive.
Thanks to special fundraising efforts in Wisconsin in recent weeks, five transmitters are scheduled to be fitted on snowies this winter in the Badger State.
The Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin raised money to pay for two of the units and Madison Audubon, Wisconsin Public Service Foundation and Wisconsin Society for Ornithology will fund one each.
The work has a sense of urgency this winter as a potential record southward push, or irruption, of snowies is being observed in the Lower 48.
As of Tuesday, 202 snowy owls had been documented in Wisconsin, according to Ryan Brady, Department of Natural Resources bird monitoring coordinator.
Only in 2014-’15 had more (210) been found by that date, according to state records. And 11 of the state’s 72 counties have not contributed reports.
Researchers with Project SNOWstorm would like to take advantage of the relatively high number of owls and get more “on the air.”
Of particular interest, they’d like to gather more data on how the birds disperse as they move south and how clumps of owls co-exist in locales like southern Green Bay.
Our group gathered Thursday afternoon at Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve in Suamico and split into four search parties.
In addition to Brinker, it included Laurel Brinker-Cole (David’s daugher) of Annapolis, Tom Erdman of Green Bay, Gene Jacobs of Stevens Point, John Jacobs of Green Bay, Tom Prestby of Green Bay, Mike Senn of Fremont and Gary Van Vreede of Green Bay,
Except for Van Vreede, who works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, all were volunteers.
But few groups could rival this one’s experience in catching birds of prey. Erdman banded his first owl in 1959 and later taught Brinker at UW-Green Bay.
All told, Erdman, the Jacobs brothers and Brinker have more than 170 years of raptor trapping and banding experience.
Snowies have an affinity for large, open spaces. That can put them at odds with humans, as the birds sometimes select airports for their southern territories.
But in most cases, the owls choose areas like farm fields and lakefronts. They feed on rodents and waterfowl, among other prey.
The harbors and breakwalls along the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan are prime spots to view snowies.
Prestby, who earned a master’s degree studying birds in Green Bay, has seen as many as 16 snowies in one day on the southern bay. This year his daily high is 13.
About 3:45 p.m. Thursday, Erdman and Prestby spotted the first snowy of the afternoon along a rocky finger of Cat Island. But it was flushed by a bald eagle and flew out of sight.
At 4 p.m., Senn and Van Vreede reported an owl on the ice closer to shore. Gene and John Jacobs moved closer and set a pair of traps; within ten minutes the snowy was captured in a bow net.
Half of the group kept searching for owls while the rest returned to Barkhausen to evaluate and band the bird.
Once inside the facility’s utility barn, Senn produced the bird, which he had held securely inside his jacket.
The owl flapped its five-foot wings and blinked at the humans around it.
After a migration of perhaps 2,000 miles, it had likely seen two-legged upright walkers like us. But certainly not under these circumstances.
Brinker grasped the bird by its legs and gave it a quick assessment. Judging by the markings, Brinker said it was a juvenile male.
The bird had white plumage flecked with dark brown. Its eyes were yellow and the size of quarters. A sharp, black beak was mostly hidden behind a mask of white feathers.
Its feet were covered with feathers, too, and seemed outsized. Curling, oneinch long black talons protruded from the toes.
A mallard or vole clenched in those pointy vices isn’t likely to get free.
Brinker worked quickly to help minimize stress to the animal. He took wing, tail and beak measurements, then felt the birds chest.
It was about in the middle of the condition spectrum — not plump but not emaciated, either. Two feather samples were cut from the bird for genetic and toxin tests.
Next, the owl was weighed: 1,530 grams. Unfortunately for tracking purposes, it came in 20 grams below the minimum weight required by Project SNOWstorm to be fitted with a transmitter.
“Our first priority is always the wellbeing of the bird,” Brinker said. “This one will get a band and a checkup but that’s it.”
Gene Jacobs, a licensed raptor bander in Wisconsin, then affixed an aluminum band to the owl’s leg.
A short time later, the owl was set free, flying into the dark near Cat Island.
Humans weren’t always so compassionate to snowies. In fact, they aggressively tried to reduce numbers of the birds in the United States for much of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Birds of prey were generally persecuted by farmers, game farm managers and others who viewed the avian predators as threats to their poultry and other animals. The birds were caught on pole traps and killed or simply shot on sight.
In one irruption alone along the East Coast in the 1930’s, Erdman said 3,000 snowies were shot and killed.
And when Erdman started working on raptors with Frances and Frederick Hamerstrom in Wisconsin in the 1950s and ’60s, about 20% of the birds they banded were found shot to death.
Birds of prey acquired greater protection in the 1970s. With very few exceptions, it is now illegal to kill a eagle, falcon, hawk or owl in North America.
The protections are increasingly vital as habitat is lost and climate change affects vegetation and prey species.
Data from the transmitters has allowed key habitat to be pinpointed in the Arctic, along migration routes and in wintering areas.
Five snowies returned to the lower 48 on subsequent winters. When the birds got within range of a cell tower for the first time in many months, the data dump was “awesome,” Brinker said.
The devices also record elevation. It’s now known snowy owls migrate within about 200 feet of the ground, Brinker said, an important consideration for siting of wind turbines.
The project has helped underscore the primary reason for irruptions — high owl production in the Arctic, not because the birds are starving on their breeding grounds.
The owls disperse southward to establish territories; most, but not all, snowies found in Wisconsin and other states in winter are in fairly good shape.
A high proportion of snowies found in Wisconsin, like the bird banded Thursday, are juveniles.
Since the birds have little to no experience with a human-built environment, they are vulnerable on their winter migrations.
The leading cause of mortality for wintering snowies in the Lower 48 is trauma, often from collisions with vehicles, according to owls examined by Cindy Driscoll, veterinarian with the Maryland DNR.
Brinker said the project has helped develop protocols to prevent owl problems at airports.
The keys are trapping the birds and transporting them far enough away from the airfields to high quality habitat with an abundance of prey.
Tracking data shows such translocated owls have a high probability of staying in their new surroundings, Brinker said.
Project SNOWstorm data also has helped scientists around the world as they grapple with population estimates of the species that spends most, and in some cases all, of its life far from humans.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has dramatically revised its global snowy owl estimates from 300,000 to 30,000.
No other snowy was captured Thursday near Suamico. But in the coming days, the volunteers with Project SNOWstorm will keep at it.
“These birds generate good will and optimism unlike any other species I’ve worked with,” Brinker said. “We don’t know where the road will lead.
“But we’re hopeful research will provide enough help so future generations of Americans will be able to experience the sight of a snowy owl, too.”