The face of a Western Screech Owl, who is staring at the viewer
Animals

Final Report on FOCI’s Western Screech Owl Project

The final report on the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) Western Screech Owl Project will be unveiled at Mansons Hall on Friday. The two biologists who were hired to write it will be giving an hour long talk that starts at 7 PM. 

“Western Screech Owls are a beautiful little owl. They used to be one of the most common owls in coastal BC, but they’ve declined hugely in the last 20 years,” explained Helen Hall, Executive Director of FOCI.  

“They’re a species that need attention. In the last three years we’ve been running a project on Cortes, Read, Maurelle and Sonora Islands to look for Screech Owls and to do what we can to help conserve them.  We started the project in 2021.  In the spring of 2022, we conducted our first audio surveys, mainly on Cortes Island. Then in 2023, we expanded our surveys onto Read, Maurelle and Sonora Islands. We did pick up Screech Owls in the north of Cortes and one on Read Island. We also went out put up nest boxes around all the islands to try and provide nesting habitats for the owls.”

Click here to access the Report

“In the spring we employed consultants from Madrone Environmental, Roxann Chilcalo and Alicia Mildner, to conduct our final report for us. They looked at all the results.  We’re really lucky that they’re now going to come over to Cortes on Friday and give a talk about the report, what we found on Cortes and to put it into the context of regional work on Screech Owl.”

“They’ve been working recently on another big project in the Campbell River area. So there’s  a really good comparison for what we’re finding on Cortes. They’re also finding a lot of the landscape has been logged. There’s only very small pockets of old-growth remaining and again, they’re finding Screech Owls in those pockets.”

Putting up a nesting box

“What we’re trying to work out now is  what is the strategy for making sure they can exist in those small pockets and how do we provide more habitat for them. This is just one indicator species showing that where you have old growth, you still have  some really valuable species like Western Screech Owls. Obviously, we don’t want to see any more old growth forests cut down, and I think this is just another argument for retaining everything we have, and having a moratorium on logging old growth areas.”

“We’re hoping that we can do some more work on Screech Owls going forward. We’re just in discussion about that at the moment.”

Autumn Barrett Morgan setting up an Autonomous Recording Unit (ARU)

Cortes Currents: Do you have any funding possibilities in sight? 

Helen Hall: “We received government funding for the Screech Owl Project and what we’re doing right now is talking to the funder to see if they will fund further work in the Discovery Islands. We think there’s a real good case for it.  We know that we need to conduct more surveys, that Screech Owls have been found right in the north of the island in small pockets of old growth habitat. What we’re potentially able to do then is to get some of the crown land, areas designated as wildlife habitat.” 

“It’d just be great if people want to come out and learn about Screech Owls on Friday.”  

“I’ve learned a lot about them in the last three years. I didn’t know anything about them until I started the project. They’re really beautiful little owl. They’re really in danger and they’re really in need of help.”  

Links of Interest

All photos courtesy FOCI

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