Owl webcam viewers want help for scrawny chickLOS ANGELES—Online cameraman Pete DeSimone is behind an online life and death drama that has divided viewers exploring the birds and bees.
The controversy surrounds barn owlet No. 6, who was born on Jan. 17. It is small, scrawny and struggling with much larger siblings for food.
A lot of
http://www.starrranch.org viewers have called on DeSimone to save the bird by taking it out of the nest.
The barn owl family's nest is located in a cavity 40 feet up a eucalyptus tree at the Audubon Society's 4,000-acre Starr Ranch Sanctuary in Trabuco Canyon, about 55 miles southeast of Los Angeles. DeSimone has been the preserve's manager for 22 years.
The mother owl laid seven eggs. They started hatching on Jan. 7. The last was born on Jan. 19, but died a week later, leaving six chicks.
It's not that No. 6 is the runt of the litter. There is no such thing with barn owls.
When No. 6 was hatched, the first chick was going on 2 weeks old. Barn owls grow to adult size in eight weeks, so there is a huge size difference.
"The oldest one was 5 or 6 inches tall and the youngest was the size of a golf ball," DeSimone said. "Age difference from the get-go puts the last chick hatched at a disadvantage."
But the bigger, stronger, older owls look like they are getting most of the food, so there were passionate pleas to DeSimone to help No. 6.
It's not going to happen, though. "There's a lot more to their well-being than what is happening in the nest, including survival and dying," DeSimone said. "Just because we get to watch these birds doesn't mean I get to manipulate what goes on in there."
"It's heart wrenching to watch," said Edy Cheney of Long Beach, "because nobody wants to see an animal suffer. I have a very soft heart, but I do think they need to let nature take its course."
Beginning with the egg watch in January, the website has gotten more than 1.7 million page views and more than 7,000 comments have been posted.
The trend favors nature, DeSimone, although he didn't have official percentages. Even without the manager's help, there is optimism about No. 6's immediate future.
"Everybody is rooting for the scrappy little guy. We all hope he makes it," Cheney said.
"That little one is feisty as can be," added Patti Lowrie of Novato. "I've seen him try to take food out of the beaks of others. I think people are panicking too soon."
Surviving the nest may be the easiest part of the battle for No. 6.
Survival from nest to adult is somewhere around 10 percent, DeSimone said. At 7 1/2 or 8 weeks old, the owls fly. After a little grace period where they come back and mooch off mom and dad, they have to get their own food, dodge predators, find a mate and locate a home of their own.
The record lifespan for a wild barn owl is 15 years, although they live in captivity much longer, DeSimone said.
One of the reasons life expectancy is so short is because there is just no place for the creatures.
For example, say a mating pair of barn owls raises six chicks a year to adulthood. If the parents die around age 11, they will have left 60 barn owls to take their place.
"Multiply that by thousands of barn owls and millions of other birds and it won't work, there's no room," DeSimone said.
DeSimone has done other web cams involving a black-chinning hummingbird and a Pacific Slope flycatcher, but none has been as successful and informative as this family of barn owls. The furor over No. 6 only enhanced it, he said.
He went in thinking he would be inundated by spam and foul language, but he said he's only had to remove about a dozen posts.
Speaking of language, barn owls don't hoot, he said. They rasp, hiss and snap their bills, but there is no hooting.
Another myth: Some viewers said it looked like the mother was taking special care of No. 6, but she's not, DeSimone said.
"She does not choose who she is feeding. The notion that she might line them all up and say some for you and some for you—that does not happen," he said.
How well they survive often depends on how much prey is brought in by the parents. For this brood, there have been plenty of rodents, DeSimone said.
Reminds me of the Netherlands little guy!!
http://www.starrranch.org
