ASU Polytechnic campus has rolled out the welcome mat for several distinguished — and feathered — guests: four burrowing owls.
Their arrival in towel-covered cardboard pet-carriers mid-morning on May 22, 2021, was a year in the making and the finishing touches on their burrows — dug out with backhoes and constructed 24 hours before — had just been completed.
In a partnership with Wild at Heart raptor rescue, ASU College of Integrative Sciences and Arts faculty, students, alumni and staff, with the help of ASU Facilities Management staff, have built and will monitor habitats for burrowing owl pairs who need relocating.
“Burrowing owls are native to the Sonoran Desert and the only owls in the world that nest in the ground,” said wildlife ecologist Heather Bateman, associate professor in the college's Faculty of Science and Mathematics, who initiated the project proposal with faculty colleagues Adam Stein, Pedro Chavarria and Cynthia Sagers. “These owls rely on other species to do their excavating and will nest in burrows dug by prairie dogs, ground squirrels, desert tortoises and other animals.”
Stretching only 9 or 10 inches when fully grown, they have big yellow eyes framed by a fluffy fringe of white eyebrow, and really long legs. Their silhouette looks much like a Russian nesting doll on stilts.
“Eventually, the owls may provide good public engagement opportunities for the community to learn about and appreciate wildlife,” Bateman said.
“Small owls in general are kind of docile and have a short approach distance, so they’re observable,” she continued. “They sit on perches near the ground and are diurnal, meaning they are active during the day. They have fuzzy and curious nestlings that hang out by their burrows. Burrowing owls produce a range of interesting sounds, from cooing and clacking to screaming, and can mimic the sound of other predators, including the rattlesnake.”
“Three of these owls came from the same burrow, most likely from the Buckeye area,” shared Wild at Heart research-habitat technician Jenohn Wrieden, as she talked with volunteers at the Polytechnic campus before slipping one owl under the shade cloth of the new habitat.
Video by Joshua Zito/ASU College of Integrative Sciences and Arts
The fourth owl, named Marathon, had been in rehab several months, wearing a boot to help mend her fractured leg.
Burrowing owls were once the most populous kind of owl in the continental United States but now are in jeopardy and are considered a "species of concern” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, so may soon need formal conservation interventions.
“With the extermination of the prairie dog populations in the West due to development, disease and land mismanagement, burrowing owl habitats have been greatly reduced,” said Greg Clark, who has overseen the Wild at Heart translocation operations since 2001. “Today, the U.S. burrowing owl population is only about 1% of what it was 150 years ago.”
But thanks to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the work of conservationists and citizen scientists, burrowing owls are being carefully extricated from building sites by organizations like Wild at Heart before excavation begins and then relocated to human-made habitats.
“These owls are pretty hardy and can adapt well to urban living,” Bateman said. “You’ll find them living in culverts, below sewer grates, in erodible soil along canals and open areas like agricultural fields, golf courses, and treeless vacant lots, even next to abandoned cars. They need shade and just enough cover from predators.”
But with construction booming in the Valley, hundreds of owls need relocation.
How does the relocation work?
Burrowing owls who have lost their natural homes in one part of the Valley are rescued by Wild at Heart and monitored for about a month in aviaries before being translocated to another location across the Valley as appropriate sites become identified and artificial habitats constructed.
“The research tells us that unless the new burrow can be put in 50 to 100 meters away from the original burrow, it’s best to relocate these owls at quite a distance, so they don't try to return to their original, now-unsafe location,” Clark explained, when asked if any of the first owls introduced at ASU Polytechnic campus may have come from the farmland recently developed along Williams Field Road west of campus.
They are placed as breeding pairs in a habitat network designed to mirror what prairie dogs would build, using simple materials: four-inch flexible irrigation hose, chicken wire, plastic whisker ties, rebar, PVC and large plastic buckets halved.
“These human-made habitats offer the owls a choice of tunnels and burrows to make their own and gives them several options to hide from their natural predators,” said Bateman, “such as great horned owls, Cooper's hawks, red-tailed hawks and other large raptors.”
For the first month of translocation, the owls will be tented with cattle shade-cloth above one burrow while they adapt to their new surroundings and begin to associate this new location with food and “home.”
“They can see right through the mesh and enjoy free-flowing air and any rainfall,” Clark said.
College of Integrative Sciences and Arts students, alumni and faculty are feeding, watering and monitoring the owls daily to make sure they are adjusting well to their new habitat. After a month, the shade cloth will be removed and access to all six burrows opened up.
“Supplemental feeding will continue for another week as they begin foraging on their own,” Bateman said. “They’ll be looking for insects, lizards, rodents to eat and may collect mammal dung, say coyote or fox scat, to attract insects.”
It’s then up to the owls to decide if they want to keep this new habitat as their permanent home or look elsewhere.
“About 30% of burrowing owls choose to remain in these new homes,” she noted. “Our students’ observations will be adding to the research to try to determine why that number isn't higher and to learn more about what environmental factors might contribute to a preferred habitat or relocation time.”
For students studying applied biological sciences at ASU's Polytechnic campus, the burrowing owl habitats offer yet another addition to a great outdoor classroom in this desert arboretum, which already includes a lizard habitat, a date grove, bee colonies, greenhouses and a community garden.
“We’re excited about bringing the experience of wildlife formally to campus. It gives students the opportunity to have a natural laboratory within a few-minutes’ walk,” said Chavarria, who teaches a range of courses related to natural resource ecology.
Senior Gabriella Mada, who will finish her applied biological sciences major with a concentration in natural resource ecology in December and then the master’s degree the following year as an accelerated “4+1” combined BS/MS option, is already looking forward to beginning research on the owls for her applied project, under the direction of Chavarria.
“My passion is wildlife conservation,” said Mada, who is also completing a minor in sustainability and a certificate in wildlife management. “This project has so many potential angles and is a great opportunity to work directly with animals.”
Mada and Chavarria have been discussing adding elements to the habitat area that could stimulate natural sources for nourishment, “such as drought-tolerant plants or artificial lights that might draw bugs and other kinds of prey,” she said. “And we’ll be using wildlife cameras to see what predators might be lurking. Hopefully, the owls will survive and stay here.”
Two applied biological sciences undergraduate students did an independent project with Stein this last academic year that laid the groundwork for the Polytechnic campus borrowing owl habitat site locations: Caitlin West, who graduated in December 2020, and Tessa Dashney identified six sites for evaluation by the ASU Architect’s Office and Facilities Management.
“It’s pretty exciting to see my work come to life so quickly,” said West, who was one of the first to arrive to help with burrow construction on May 21 and the first volunteer to feed the owls the next evening.
Polytechnic campus Facilities Management staff members Phil Penn (operating the mini backhoe) and Cesar Urena (working the hose) begin digging the burrowing owl habitat trenches at 7 a.m. on May 21, 2021. "The entire Facilities Management team was thrilled to be part of this project," said Polytechnic Facilities Management Director Tom Lyons, who was also on-site.
College of Integrative Sciences and Arts Dean Duane Roen, Lecturer Pedro Chavarria and Associate Professor Heather Bateman discuss project details and interesting burrowing owl behaviors while trenches for the first habitat are dug. "The conservation projects and field experiences that our faculty organize for applied biological sciences students are incredible," Roen said.
Minecraft, anyone? After the first trench was cut, alumnus Tyler Obermeit jumped in to help Wild at Heart habitat technician Jenohn Wrieden shovel the tunnel bends and flatten the bottom. Obermeit loves the hands-on aspect of conservation and “plans to do fieldwork until his body gives out.” Greg Clark, Wild at Heart burrowing owl habit coordinator, supervises.
Applied biological sciences majors James Bohan and Gabriella Mada help Wild at Heart's Jenohn Wrieden install chicken wire along the part of the trench where the halved plastic buckets will be placed to form a nesting den. Putting chicken wire under the buckets keeps potential predators from being able to dig their way in to the owls from below.
Volunteer Zahra Husrieh, an undergraduate student in ASU's Fulton Schools of Engineering at the Polytechnic campus, hands one of the nesting buckets down to Jenohn Wrieden for placement in the trench. Husrieh was one of 10 students and alumni who worked to help constuct the burrowing owl habitats on May 21 and 22, 2021.
Duane Roen works with Jenohn Wrieden to saw a clean edge on the flexible hose, so that a snug, secure connection can be made between the tubing and the plastic bucket and so there are no jagged edges on which owls could injure themselves.
Applied biological sciences major James Bohan and alumnus Tyler Obermeit work to connect pieces of four-inch flexible hose that forms the burrow tunnels. The hose makes a sharp 90-degree turn in the underground trench and then another 90-plus-degree curve as it comes out of the ramp and forms the burrow entrance.
Applied biological sciences alumni Caitlin West (left) and Loren Hupe dig excess dirt from the part of a trench that will become the entrance ramp into a burrow. West was one of two undergraduates who volunteered to work with faculty member Adam Stein this last year to research and identify locations at Polytechnic campus that would be best ecologically for burrowing owl habitats.
Greg Clark demonstrates to volunteers how to secure and stabilize burrow entrances by threading metal wire through the chicken wire that encases the tubing at the end. The wire ends then get wrapped around rebar pounded on each side of the entrance. An engineer by profession, Clark has perfected owl habitat design over the last 20 years to make burrows unassailable from predators.
Tyler Obermeit and Zahra Husrieh pound rebar into each side of a burrow entrance.
Greg Clark gives a thumbs up to ASU Polytechnic campus Facilities Management's Esli Arvizo, who's operating the Kubato to do the final fill-in and smoothing of dirt over one of the new habitats. Two burrow systems about 600 feet apart were constructed on May 21 with Facilities Management's help. The next day, volunteers constructed shadecloth tents at the two sites and owls arrived.
On the second day of construction, May 22, 2021, volunteers built the shade-cloth tents that will keep the owl pairs safe and cool as they adapt to their new location. Here, the volunteers stretch cattle shade-cloth over tent poles.
From top-right, clockwise: Jenohn Wrieden, applied biological sciences major, Emily La Sala, Zahra Husrieh, Heather Bateman and Greg Clark prepare to roll up the excess shade-cloth on one side of the tent, while others fill and pour buckets of soil on the other sides, to create berms that hold the shade-cloth down and keep the owls safe inside.
Faculty member Pedro Chavarria and applied biological sciences alumni Caitlin West and Quinn Anderson work to secure the corners of one shade structure.
For the first four weeks, while owls are under tents at one entrance of the "burrow one" and "burrow two" habitats, other entrances will stay closed-over with PVC. Six burrow dens were constructed at the ASU Polytechnic campus in a vacant lot south of the water tower, giving each owl pair a choice of three burrows in which to nest and/or escape from predators.
When the tenting was finished, the owls arrived by relay from Wild at Heart. Greg Clark and Jenohn Wrieden took time to answer volunteers' questions and gave directions on owl feeding and monitoring. Wrieden points out the markings on this owl's wing, which also shows signs of a former injury. Markings can sometimes help identify the sex of an owl, which is best discerned with a DNA test.
With their large yellow eyes, exaggerated white eyebrow fringe and "beard," the burrowing owls native to the Southwest are mesmerizing. Owls' eyes are cylindrical tubes and can't be moved around like humans', thus the owls' ability to turn their heads 270 degrees.
Since their arrival, the owl pairs have been eating normally and have been observed outside the burrow entrances.
Many ASU students and faculty will be studying the daily life of these sociable owls, in efforts to contribute to greater knowledge about how humans can help this species survive. Possibilities abound on how to integrate the owls into undergraduate labs in courses like habitat management, range restorations and sustainable horticulture.
The Polytechnic campus owl team extended an invitation to faculty at the ASU West campus to join this endeavor and owl habitats are being installed there with Chad Johnson as the faculty lead. Earlier in May, Stein and applied biological sciences May graduate Tyler Obermeit helped Wild at Heart prepare and install a burrowing owl habitat at Mayo Clinic’s Phoenix campus.
The connection with Mayo Clinic was timely and serendipitous, Bateman said.
“Dr. Catherine (Cat) Chong from their Department of Neurology contacted me in January about wanting to take part in a conservation project on the lands surrounding the clinic and hospital that patients and staff could enjoy. The timing was really perfect because we were in the process of establishing the ASU owls,” she said.
“We visited both the clinic and hospital locations and Adam and Tyler — student president of our student chapter of Wildlife Restoration Society of America — took the lead on making the connection with Wild at Heart and suggesting burrowing owls and screech owl nest box additions to their campus,” Bateman said. “They were able to move pretty quickly and installed burrows and owls on May 10. They’re getting ready to take down the release tents now.”
“The sign-up sheet for the month’s feeding schedule at Mayo had filled up within a week,” observed Obermeit, who drove down from his field internship in the White Mountains (where he’s tracking the endangered New Mexico meadow jumping mouse), to help construct the burrows at Polytechnic campus.
With the growing number of educational institutions involved in sponsoring and monitoring burrowing owl habitats, Chavarria envisions a burrowing owl symposium where students and faculty can share knowledge and best practices.
“With what’s happening in the Valley at ASU and Mayo locations, at Estrella Mountain Community College, with conservation organizations like Wild at Heart, Liberty Wildlife, Arizona Audubon, with Kerrie Ann Lloyd’s work at ASU at Lake Havasu City, and with colleagues at New Mexico State University, we’re building quite a coalition in the region.”
Fingers are crossed that these translocated owl pairs and their offspring take to their new homes.
“We’d like to keep this going as long as they are happy,” Chavarria said.
“The habitat here that we’re seeing doesn’t look like much now,” he observed as he glanced around the vacant lot between the Polytechnic campus water tower and the former community school. “But that’ll be part of our students’ ability to be innovative and think about ways to improve habitat and foraging opportunities. A lot of this will not be just us telling students what to do, but having them do some of the background research and figuring out how to build it out. It’s really an exciting opportunity to involve many students – in classes and research projects from habitat management, rangeland management, horticulture, sustainability and engineering. We’re taking a really integrative approach to conservation.”
The project offers further proof that ASU is a university that measures itself not by whom we exclude, but by “hoot” we include and how they succeed.
Would you like to help? Wild at Heart is always looking for help digging holes and identifying new burrow sites in niche urban areas of Phoenix, e.g. around commercial buildings or greenbelts, away from tall trees and buildings where predators could perch but near possible food sources (mice and insects). Contact Greg Clark at greg@BTLLCAZ.com or call Wild at Heart at 480-595-5047.
Top photo: Wild at Heart's burrowing owl relocation coordinator Greg Clark introduces one of the first burrowing owls to be translocated from the West Valley to man-made habitats at the ASU Polytechnic campus on May 22, 2021. Photo by Kelley Karnes, ASU College of Integrative Sciences and Arts.
Director, Creative Services , College of Integrative Sciences and Arts
602-496-1454 Maureen.Roen@asu.edu
Before opening her Tempe restaurant, 24Carrots Natural Café, Sasha Raj was a student-worker in the ASU Gammage box office experimenting with juices and drafting her business plan between job shifts and classes. Now, Raj is a Tempe 2021 State of the Neighborhoods and Awards winner and credits much of her success to the opportunities she received at ASU Gammage.“My day-to-day academics at ASU w...
Before opening her Tempe restaurant, 24Carrots Natural Café, Sasha Raj was a student-worker in the ASU Gammage box office experimenting with juices and drafting her business plan between job shifts and classes. Now, Raj is a Tempe 2021 State of the Neighborhoods and Awards winner and credits much of her success to the opportunities she received at ASU Gammage.
“My day-to-day academics at ASU were very much science-based and ASU Gammage was an incredibly creative outlet,” Raj said. “You’re also surrounded by people who are artists and performers and singers, and they have made a living out of being creative, and that’s something that … in my first-generation immigrant family, it wasn’t often seen. Creativity was usually in addition to whatever career you are going to have. You were a doctor and a dancer, or a musician and a physician, but ASU Gammage introduced me to this entire world of people who had taken what they were passionate about in the arts and built themselves a world. That really struck me at an age where I needed to know that that was possible.” Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, vice president for cultural affairs and executive director of ASU Gammage (left), and Sasha Raj, owner of 24Carrots Natural Café, accept their awards at Tempe's 2021 State of the Neighborhoods and Awards. Download Full Image
Raj, who worked in another juice bar before opening 24Carrots, realized that she “wanted to work at a restaurant or work in an environment that allowed me to be fully transparent with my community.”
“When I didn’t really find that I tried to create it,” Raj said.
Between her biochemistry courses at Arizona State University and her time spent working in the ASU Gammage box office, Raj forged ahead toward this dream and found support from her supervisors at work.
In the summer months, Raj set up a booth along the path that ASU Gammage patrons would take to get to the theater. Raj prepared samples of her juices for patrons to try as they walked by, and provided comment cards to get feedback about how to improve her business.
“I would just take every container I had in the house and I would puree it into whatever juice and smoothie and whatnot that I could find,” Raj said. “And then I would bring them in, and my co-workers were really sweet about sampling and I still stay in touch with a lot of them.”
More than a decade after 24Carrots opened its doors, Raj’s passion for the Earth and good-for-you ingredients has earned her the Sustainability Award for Business.
Raj said that using biodegradable and recyclable materials whenever possible is just one part of being sustainable and that it is also about her employees, her customers and the community at large.
Amidst the ongoing pandemic, Raj and her team at 24Carrots doubled down on supporting their nonprofit partners who were hit especially hard.
“We continue to work with community partners to provide additions to meals for five different school districts,” Raj said. “In the month of May, 24Carrots alongside five or six other restaurants through a chef cooperative that I’m a part of called the Blue Watermelon Project, we were able to chop up local carrots, package them up to feed 24,000 school lunches across four weeks. We’ve been supporting three shelters regularly with food, we’ve supported two hospitals, we’ve supported foster care networks and also tried to nurture and support up-and-coming entrepreneurs through mentorship and things like that.”
Raj said that while the term “essential workers” was used more in 2020 to describe people like her team at 24Carrots, “our work was always essential.”
“I hope we showed our community that every time they choose us during the good times, we will choose them when it’s rough,” Raj said. “We won’t abandon them ever. It also showed our team that even when the world is incredibly disjointed and it’s very, very difficult to understand what your day-to-day is going to look like, that if we work together, we can still be impactful, we can still work with purpose.”
When Raj received her award, she recognized a familiar face amongst her fellow awardees — her former boss at ASU Gammage, Colleen Jennings-Roggensack.
Jennings-Roggensack, vice president for cultural affairs and executive director of ASU Gammage, received the Arts and Culture Award for Community Impactor. She said the reunion was “very emotional,” and Raj’s gratitude for her experience at ASU Gammage is a testament to the university’s dedication to preparing students for careers outside of the classroom.
“We employ about 156 students a year,” Jennings-Roggensack said. “Most of our students who come to work for us stay with us through all four years of college, and if they go on to graduate school, they still continue to work for us. It was just very moving, but also very telling about how many different students’ lives we impact and help them on their journey to who they will become.”