Pup to help owl rescue

A CROWD-funding campaign to teach a puppy to track down the elusive Tasmanian masked owl has reached its $60,000 target with just hours to spare.

Scientists from the Australian National University’s Difficult Bird Research Group needed to raise the money by midnight last night, or they would have lost all their donations.

The campaign to train a border collie puppy to detect the scent of masked owls in the Tasmanian forest was launched last Friday, and organisers hit their goal at 3.15pm yesterday.

Dejan Stojanovic, who is leading the campaign, was overwhelmed with the public support.

“If you don’t hit the target that’s it — it’s all over,” Dr Stojanovic said. “There were some points there where we didn’t think that we’d get it up.

“This project is really important to all of us, so the fact that we now have the money in the bank and that we’re to proceed with the project is just a relief.

“If this hadn’t gotten up, we’d have had to figure out another way to fund it, and this saves us wasting huge amounts of time trying to scramble together other grants.”

Masked owls are endangered in Tasmania. They are also nocturnal and their preferred forest habitat is difficult to access. As a result, little is known about what they need to survive. It is estimated fewer than 1000 masked owls are living in Tasmanian forests, but a field survey this year found just 30 birds.

The pup, Zorro, will be taught to sniff out owl pellets — regurgitated indigestible parts of prey, which look like cat fur-balls — on the forest floor, with training to start this week.