Each tent contains 2 burrowing owls, 1 male and 1 female.įor the next 6 weeks, PCMNs Jean Boris (C2), Penny Miller (C2), Debbie Petrich (C1) with Kathy McLin (C3), and Kathe Sudano (C3), in addition to 3 other volunteers, who were trained on feeding the owls mice on boards and changing out water, will return on their specific day to do so. For the Martin Farm site this day, 26 Burrowing Owls were being relocated from Phoenix and released in our 13 newly constructed tents by Greg Clark, Burrowing Owl Habitat Coordinator, from WAH. Reasons for their decline include habitat destruction, climate change/drought/fire, and farm pesticides which kill their insect prey. Burrowing owls are federally listed as endangered species in Canada, threatened species in Mexico, and protected by varying laws in 9 US states. Wild at Heart (WAH) is an Arizona-based Raptor Rescue Organization and their Burrowing Owl Project relocates burrowing owls rescued from construction or land development sites across the State of Arizona.

On a sunny winter’s day in January, a group of 10 Pima County Master Naturalists (PCMN) and other volunteers, embarked on building 13 small release tents over artificial burrows at Wild At Heart’s Martin Farm site in Marana. Written by Deb Petrich (C1) and Kathy McLin (C3) with contributions from Penny Miller.

Wild heart rescue ranch marana