On the brink of disappearing, burrowing owls are recovering in B.C. — with a little help - Abolish Capital!
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/BurrowingOwlsUNB_3-1400x933.jpg]
— Nine-year-old John Smithers cradles a tiny burrowing owl in his hands,
preparing to release it into the grasslands of Upper Nicola Band territory. Like
other young syilx people, he’s grown up hearing stories about the small birds of
prey that have nearly disappeared from his Thompson-Okanagan homelands in the
last century or so. The owls – known in syilx culture as guardians, guides or
messengers – were “once a common element” in landscapes stretching from the
southern Interior of B.C. all the way to Manitoba, according to
[https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/cosewic-assessments-status-reports/burrowing-owl-2017.html]
Canada’s Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife. Now, burrowing owl
sightings are rare. In 2003, the Government of Canada listed the burrowing owl
as endangered under the federal Species At Risk Act. According to the Burrowing
Owl Alliance, the bird’s population in the country has declined by over 96 per
cent since 1987. Experts link the bird’s decline to the gradual loss of its
grassland habitats over the last century. “Lots of animals can come and get
them,” Smithers said about the lack of protective habitat for the burrowing owl.
A boy in a brown sweatshirt kneels in front of a log with a small owl in his
hands, in a grassy field under a blue sky. Behind him many people stand and sit
to watch. [https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-7.jpeg] John
Smithers, a nine-year-old student from Upper Nicola Band’s N’kwala School,
prepares to release a captive-born burrowing owl down an artificial nesting
burrow and into the wild. — Aware of the owls’ importance and decline, earlier
this year Smithers became N’kwala School’s annual student ambassador to a
regional burrowing owl recovery program that’s being led by the First Nation. As
ambassador, he was invited to be the first person of the year to release a
captive-born burrowing owl into the wild on April 22, in his home community of
spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) in B.C.’s Nicola Valley. The release, which coincided
with Earth Day, marked 10 years since Upper Nicola Band began releasing
captive-born burrowing owls onto their homelands. In return, those
captive-raised owls have produced 125 “wild-born” baby owls — or fledglings —
since being released from the community’s restoration site. Despite high winds
and the risk of ticks, dozens of excited people from all age groups turned out
in high spirits for the release. Students, nature enthusiasts and Elders alike
shared laughs and smiles at the sight of the precious birds, with their round
heads, short stature and long legs. A man in mirrored sunglasses, a cowboy hat
and a red jacket holds a small owl in his hands under a blue sky.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-9-1024x683.jpeg] Upper
Nicola Band Elder Howard (Howie) Holmes prepares to release a captive-born
burrowing owl down an artificial nesting burrow. — Framed by grassy hills,
Smithers released the owl under the warm sunshine with the help of Dawn Brodie,
one of the main field technicians who has been involved in the program since its
inception. The nervous bird nearly escaped from his grasp and into the open air.
But thanks to the quick reflexes of the adults around him, helping hands connect
the captive-born owl back to the land and down an artificial nesting burrow that
had been prepared by the Upper Nicola Band stewardship department. “Soft” is the
word Smithers used to describe the feeling of holding the owl. Soon after,
several guests in attendance – from program partners to youth and Elders – were
invited by the field technicians to release an owl down different burrows that
were created by the recovery program and its partners. Some of the owls wore
amusingly bewildered expressions as they waited in the gentle grasp of human
hands before being placed into a burrow. A small burrowing owl is held in two
hands. It has a surprised look on its face.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-11.jpeg] A captive-born
burrowing owl prior to being released into an artificial nesting burrow. Some
attendees were amused by the owls’ bewildered facial expressions. — In total, 11
captive-born owls — six males and five females — were released into five of the
site’s 35 artificial burrows that day. They are all just under one year old.
“The program has exceeded all our expectations,” Loretta Holmes, an Upper Nicola
Band member and senior resource technician with the band’s stewardship
department, said. “The owls, which we call sq̓əq̓axʷ, have responded better than
we dared to hope ten years ago. And community interest and involvement has been
strong since the start.” Owls released into artificial burrows filled with
frozen mice ------------------------------------------------------------- The
tiny burrows are connected through a network of underground tunnels hidden under
the grassland hills above spax̌mn. Each artificial burrow consists of a small,
corrugated tube in the ground that serves as its entrance, which feeds into the
larger network of tunnels. The entry points are camouflaged in the field by
grass and large rocks. Rocks and logs cover a corrugated tube in a grassy field
under a blue sky.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-12.jpeg] Artificial
nesting burrows are scattered throughout the grassland hills above Upper Nicola
Band, at the community’s burrowing owl restoration program site in spax̌mn
(Douglas Lake). The decline in badgers on the territory has led to a decline in
natural burrows. — Before any captive-raised owls are released, handfuls of
frozen mice are inserted into the burrows and tunnels. “That helps them not have
to go as far to hunt as often. It encourages them to lay more eggs, and helps
them rear their young ones when they’re hatched,” Holmes said. Once released,
the burrow entrances are closed off for a few days, explained Chris Gill, a
project biologist with the band’s Species-At-Risk program. “It’s to let them
acclimatize and calm down, basically. And potentially bond with the mate that’s
in there,” Gill said. Breeding gets underway
[https://www.burrowingowlbc.org/images/Newsletters/BUOWconservation_Brochure.pdf]
as soon as two owls choose each other as mates, and Gill said that eggs are laid
in June. The burrow tunnels, which protect the owls from predators, are
connected to a nest box. The nest box has an opening at ground level, allowing
technicians to observe how many eggs have been laid and monitor activity. Two
dead white mice in a blue shovel are lowered into a corrugated tube, to feed
owls. [https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-10-1024x683.jpeg]
Frozen mice are placed into the artificial burrows to fuel the owls as they
adjust to the wild, and encourage them to lay more eggs. — Technicians also
attach leg bands to the newly-hatched birds here, to track future migration.
Mice are also delivered to the burrows two to three times a week. Holmes said
that this type of care results in nests that carry nine to 10 eggs — more than
the average of six to eight laid by burrowing owls in the wild. The mice are
“giving them a big head start and maximizing the chances of producing healthy
fledglings, and healthy parents as well,” Gill said. The owls stay in the site’s
burrow network anywhere from four days to up to a week, depending on weather
conditions, and are then free to fly around in the open air. “They mostly stick
at the site, even after you release them out of the burrow, because they’re now
used to the site,” Gill said. “They may have paired up, or they may choose
another mate from the site.” A man with brown hair in a blue windbreaker
gestures toward the camera.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-8-1024x683.jpeg] Chris
Gill, a project biologist with the Upper Nicola Band’s Species-At-Risk program,
addresses attendees of the release event at the playground of N’kwala School in
in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake). — By July, fledglings will start to emerge from the
burrows, and the owls usually start to migrate south in September and October.
They’ll return to the breeding sites next April. Tracked migration data from
burrowing owls who left the site in previous years revealed that the birds
travel as far as San Jose, California. “It’s just so amazing that they went all
the way somewhere, wintered in those conditions and came back,” Holmes said.
“It’s wonderful.” Owl recovery “one piece of a larger puzzle” in restoring
ecosystem health
------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the
last decade, more than 100 burrowing owls have been raised in captivity at the
Kamloops Wildlife Park by the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society, before being
released at spax̌mn. There’s a site in Oliver that supports the program as well.
The captive-raised owls all come with identification tags on their legs, which
are documented by field technicians before they are released into the burrows.
Two small owls are transported in a carrier
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-13.jpeg] Two
captive-born burrowing owls from the Kamloops Wildlife Park — one female and one
male — are transported to their artificial burrow for release. Soon after
release, the owls will choose a mate and begin to lay eggs. — Many of the
120-plus wild-born owls have left the Upper Nicola Band site and returned,
including four who came back this spring; two males and two females, three of
which were born at the site last year. While the conservation efforts are
helping to re-populate the burrowing owl species in this part of the country,
Upper Nicola Band views this work as only one piece of the larger puzzle of how
to protect the community’s rare and sensitive grassland ecosystem habitats. By
stewarding these ecosystems — and restoring and supporting the biodiversity that
has been depleted — it’s also an act by the band to protect their cultural
identity and fulfill generational responsibilities around caring for the land
and for all living things. “Conserving a species at risk, like a burrowing owl,
it’s about far more than a single bird or species. It’s about upholding
relationships, responsibilities and balance with the living world,” Holmes said.
Animals like the burrowing owl are part of an interconnected system that has
sustained Indigenous Peoples for generations, she said. A woman in sunglasses
and a blue hat wearing owl earrings smiles
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-15.jpeg] Loretta Holmes,
an Upper Nicola Band member and senior resource technician with the band’s
stewardship department, wears owl-themed earrings made by a Kamloops-based
Indigenous artist. — “If one species declines, it signals that the relationship
between people and the land is out of balance. Conservation becomes an act of
restoring harmony and respect in that system,” she said. “Protecting species at
risk aligns with Indigenous laws that emphasize caretaking. Conservation efforts
honour the principle that decisions made today must ensure the healthy lands and
wildlife for our relatives yet to come.” It’s just one of many projects under
the community’s stewardship department’s larger Species-At-Risk program, which
is designed to protect and restore endangered species populations on their
lands. The program also looks at restoration efforts for species including the
American badger, Lewis’s woodpecker and Great Basin spadefoot — all of which
have been federally recognized as threatened or at-risk. Penticton Indian Band —
a fellow syilx community that’s under the Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA) along
with Upper Nicola Band — also released burrowing owls through their own similar
program that same week
[https://www.facebook.com/PIBGuardians/posts/pfbid0FRsSBxBUCwVxWA2g4H99XKcfGPusmHAh6kgGpMsrFsXqchckSPwf9z4zADWMFUVPl].
“In British Columbia, burrowing owls are extirpated. That means that they’re not
actually existing on the landscape without reintroduction programs, like the
Upper Nicola Band’s,” Gill said. An owl is lowered into a corrugated tube
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-14.jpeg] A captive-born
burrowing owl is released into an artificial nesting burrow. The burrows will be
sealed for a few days, to give the owls a chance to acclimate (and dine on
frozen mice). — But Traditional Ecological Knowledge gathered from Elders and
advisors confirmed that burrowing owls historically existed on the spax̌mn
landscape. In 2015, a year before the burrowing owl recovery program launched,
the Species-At-Risk team conducted surveys on reserve lands to determine a
suitable habitat for the birds. They settled on the grasslands above the Upper
Nicola Band community as the reintroduction program’s site. “We found suitable
habitat for burrowing owls — but no burrowing owls present,” said Gill. A grassy
field under a blue sky.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-17.jpeg] The grassland
ecosystem landscape above the Upper Nicola Band community is the site of their
burrowing owl restoration program. Grassland ecosystems are critically
endangered, covering only around one per cent of B.C. — and only a small
fraction of those are protected. — The birds traditionally nested in the
underground burrows that were dug and abandoned by different animals, from
badgers to marmots and coyotes, he said. But because of a lack of badgers, there
weren’t any natural burrows out on the land. “That’s why the Upper Nicola Band
put in these artificial burrows,” he said. “There are actually badgers on that
reserve, but there are very few — and far in-between — so we can’t rely on a
burrowing owl finding a badger burrow.” According to the province
[https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/plants-animals-and-ecosystems/species-ecosystems-at-risk/brochures/burrowing_owl.pdf],
“several small” burrowing owl nesting sites were identified in the Okanagan and
Thompson valleys from 1900 to 1928. Historical nesting areas include Osoyoos,
Oliver, Penticton, White Lake, Lower Similkameen Valley, Vernon, Kamloops and
Douglas Lake. A grassy field with a structure of logs and rocks concealing an
artificial burrow for owls.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-16.jpeg] Artificial
nesting burrows are scattered throughout the grassland hills above Upper Nicola
Band. — But between 1928 and 1980, only four nesting sites were recorded. The
federal government attributed
[https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/cosewic-assessments-status-reports/burrowing-owl-2017.html]
the “conversion of grassland to cropland” as the “ultimate factor responsible
for the decline in burrowing owls.” It estimates that the species experienced a
90 per cent population decline from 1990 to 2000. Also contributing to the owl’s
population decline is the “gauntlet” of issues they face on their migration
route, Holmes said. This includes fatalities occurring from collisions with wind
turbine farms and motor vehicles. Pesticides targeting insects and rodents that
the birds feed upon indirectly poison them as well. In 2004, the estimated
population of burrowing owls in Canada was recorded at 795 mature individuals.
In 2015, it had plunged to approximately 270. Burrowing owl populations are “in
a nose dive,” Gill said. He called the burrowing owl “a canary in a coal mine”
in measuring the state of ecosystem health. “A badger, a burrowing owl — those
species are the indicator species. If they’re not doing well, then that’s a sign
of something bigger that’s not doing well,” he said. Upper Nicola Band’s
grassland ecosystem is “incredibly resilient,” but grasslands across Canada are
critically endangered
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Along with Holmes and Brodie, Gill helped initiate the burrowing owl
reintroduction program 10 years ago. He called the two women “the work horses”
of the program. “We monitor the owls, and write really good data collection on
it,” said Brodie, a veterinary technician who supports the program as a
burrowing owl consultant. The program has been a success, Gill said, not just
because of the region’s “great grasslands.” “But it’s also the stewardship
that’s going on with these owls,” he said. “It’s one of the most productive
sites in B.C. for releasing our fledging owls.” In the wild, burrowing owls can
live anywhere from four to six years, according to Lauren Meads, the executive
director of the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC. Meads, who was joined
at the release event by the society’s 11-year-old educational burrowing owl,
Pluto, added that in captivity they can live up to 15 years. A child in a
patterned purple jacket gently pets an owl.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-20.jpeg] A student from
N’kwala School in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake), B.C., pets Pluto, an 11-year-old
educational burrowing owl with the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC, at
the school gym. In captivity, burrowing owls can live up to 15 years. —
According to the Government of B.C., grasslands made up less than one percent of
the province’s land area in 2004, adding that “only a small percentage of our
grasslands are protected.” But grasslands surrounding the Upper Nicola landscape
are “some of the most intact and incredibly resilient grasslands” Gill has
observed, he said. “Grasslands are one of the most endangered ecosystems in
Canada. … They’re very, very rare. It looks like we have a lot, but this is one
little spot,” he said. Holmes added that protecting grasslands also protects the
burrowing owls. “That’s their home. It works hand-in-hand,” she said. Three
community members walk across a grassy field toward a hill, with trucks parked
in the distance.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-18.jpeg] Community
members walk toward an artificial nesting burrow at the Upper Nicola Band’s
burrowing owl restoration site. The release event drew community members of all
ages to celebrate the tiny owls and their release. — Owl conservation,
protection is a cultural responsibility
--------------------------------------------------------- Holmes said that the
burrowing owl’s population decline and status as an endangered species is not
just an ecological matter, but a cultural issue as well. sq̓əq̓axʷ are a “symbol
of our cultural identity,” she said. “Owls can be messengers, teachers or
indicators in an Indigenous knowledge system. They’re often associated with
observation, protections and indicators of change.” The loss of burrowing owls
“erodes the stories, the teachings and our ways of understanding the land that
has been passed down through generations,” she added. An older couple in a
field, watching an owl release.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-19.jpeg] Upper Nicola
Band Elders Howard (Howie) Holmes, pictured here with Linda Intalin Holmes,
released one of the 11 captive-born owls. — Upper Nicola Chief Dan Manuel said
in a statement that burrowing owls are deeply woven into syilx culture. “For our
people, the cultural, spiritual and environmental importance of sq̓əq̓axʷ are
one,” Manuel said. “Our culture is rooted in co-existence with the world around
us. We have a responsibility to care for the land and the beings on it. We must
help rebuild what has been lost, and it will continue to support us.” A woman in
a red jacket and light cowboy hat lectures to an assembled crowd in a grassy
field during an owl release.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-21.jpeg] Dawn Brodie,
one of the main field technicians who has been involved in Upper Nicola Band’s
burrowing owl restoration program since its inception, leads the release event
of 11 captive-born owls. — Holmes said that having a dedicated conservation
program fulfills those duties that are owed to the land and to all living
beings. “It treats our relatives with respect,” she said. “The land, the
animals, the plants — everything that’s there — provides us with sustenance. So
it’s our responsibility to take care of them as well. We see all those things as
our relatives.” She emphasized that Indigenous Peoples have inherent
responsibilities as stewards of their territories — responsibilities that
originate in syilx laws, teachings and oral traditions, also known as captikʷł
[https://syilx.org/about-us/syilx-nation/captikwl/]. “That predates colonial
conservation frameworks,” she said. An older man with white hair and a denim
jacket speaks in front of a playground.
[https://thenarwhal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-22-1024x683.jpeg] Upper
Nicola Band Elder Casey Holmes speaks at the playground of N’kwala School, prior
to the release event for 11 captive-born owls into the community’s burrowing owl
restoration site in spax̌mn (Douglas Lake) on April 22, 2026. — Upper Nicola
Band Elder Casey Holmes thanked all the staff and volunteers involved in the
community’s stewardship program, especially for their work in supporting the
restoration of the burrowing owl population. “People are making a difference.
Even if it doesn’t look like a difference, they made a difference today, to make
this a success – to make this a part of history that we’re not losing,” said
Casey. When the community loses a tmixʷ
[https://www.firstvoices.com/syilx/words/518ad091-510f-4b08-8a90-060977370fc9]
(all living things) relative, Casey said that “we lose a part of history.”
“Bringing back this, is regaining back that history,” he said. The Narwhal’s
reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else.
Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent
journalism [https://thenarwhal.ca/newsletter/]. — From The Narwhal | News on
Climate Change, Environmental Issues in Canada [https://thenarwhal.ca/feed/] via
This RSS Feed [https://thenarwhal.ca/feed/].
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