Tag Archives: Western Screech Owl

Animals

Success: The search for Western Screech Owls on Cortes Island

Up until now, there have not been any reports of Western Screech Owls on Cortes Island since 2017. That just changed a few weeks ago in the island’s more remote northern forest. 

Field biologist Sabina Leader Mense reports, “I was sitting in the skiff with my husband Dennis, under an unbelievably brilliant sky of stars. It was the last station of the night, pushing midnight, and in the 16th minute of that 17 minute call playback sequence, I heard something. I remember pivoting around in the boat. The sound was behind me and you do what owls do, you turn around.  I think your ears and the muscles and your ears cup and you’re just straining to hear something. Then I heard the call again. It was very distant, but I recognized it was an owl. I began analyzing the audio disks in my head going, ‘is it a Northern Pygmy Owl? Is it a Northern Saw-Whet Owl?’ As I was doing this, it called the third time and I recognized it was a Western Screech Owl.”  

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Animals

Search for the elusive Western Screech Owl

In 2021, the Friends of Cortes Island received funding from the Habitat Stewardship Program to seek out the elusive Western Screech Owls. This research is being guided by the Pacific Megascops Research Alliance, and biologists from the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship are part of the team. The first season was spring 2022. 

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Waste

This past year at FOCI, an interview with Helen Hall

Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) recently had its AGM. This is also Helen Hall’s seventh year as Executive Director. So Cortes Currents asked her for an overview of this past year and how the organization has changed during her tenure. 

Helen Hall: “That’s a big question, FOCI has always been doing a lot of different projects. I act as the central point for FOCI, but there’s a lot of work going on with volunteers and our contractors.” 

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Animals

Government protection of Species at Risk ineffective, report says

A new report commissioned by the Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club BC found that Federal and Provincial government policy gaps have rendered their protection of Species at Risk ineffective. 

“Our study looked at terrestrial and freshwater vertebrate species in BC We needed to refine the scope a little bit just because there are so many Species at Risk in BC. In order to do this analysis, we had to narrow in on a few representative species. In total, we chose 64 species. Of the 64 species, only two of them have had their critical habitat mapped by the deadlines. The remaining 97% have experienced critical habitat mapping delays anywhere from 2 to 18 years. Then there’s 16 of the 64 species that still don’t even have their critical habitat mapped,” explained Charlotte Dawe of the Wilderness Committee.

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Animals

Ministry biologist talks about five threatened bird species on Cortes Island

When Cortes Currents asked the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) who to interview for more in depth coverage of ‘species at risk,’ they responded ‘Jenna Cragg’ from BC’s Ministry of Environment. That was last January, which shows how busy she is. Sabina Leader Mense described Cragg as one of FOCI’s key ‘go to’ species at risk biologists, who provides the facts that FOCI brings into the community. 

In the emails we exchanged prior to this interview, Cragg specifically mentioned five species: the Marbled Murrelet, Great Blue Heron, Double Crested Cormorant, Pelagic Cormorant and Western Screech Owl.

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