Point Reyes Light- September 3, 1998
Ailing rare spotted owl found in San Geronimo Valley
Workers at a San Rafael wildlife center are keeping close watch on a northern spotted owl that has been weakening steadily since it was taken there by a Forest Knolls hiker last week.
"He's in very bad condition," said Lisa Fosco, a director at WildCare, a non-profit center that specializes in nursing wild animals back to health. "He's continuing to go downhill."
Emaciated and full of parasites, the juvenile bird was found Thursday morning on a trail by Daniel Kehoe, who was hiking through Candelaro Canyon in the Gary Giacomini Open Space Preserve near Forest Knolls.
"It lost its balance as it turned to watch me, and it dropped right off the tree," Kehoe said. "I thought, 'This isn't what owls are supposed to do.'"
After receiving food and fluid for nearly a week, the owl's strength has improved, but it is apparently suffering from a neurological disorder and its balance has gotten increasingly worse, Fosco said.
In recent years, northern spotted owls - a member of the federal threatened species list - have been caught in the cross-fire between environmentalists and loggers in the Pacific Northwest. But here on the southern periphery of their range, the owls seem to have found a safe niche, said David Press, a biologist with the Point Reyes National Seashore.
A survey this year revealed about 50 pairs of the threatened birds nesting on public lands throughout the county, Press said. "We have quite a healthy population here ... As development expands, the owls really haven't seemed to move away. It is possible for them to cohabitate with humans."
Indeed, Kehoe said a number of his neighbors regularly sight a pair of adult northern spotted owls in Forest Knolls. Nesting pairs have also been seen near houses in Inverness, Nicasio, and Mill Valley, said Daphne Hatch, a wildlife biologist with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Still, Kehoe suspects that nearby construction on a 22-acre parcel left over from the proposed Skye Ranch subdivision may have contributed to the juvenile owl's poor condition. Both Press and Cindy Dicke, an assistant director at WildCare, noted the young owl had reached a critical stage in its development where it must begin providing for itself.
"At least 50 percent of young raptors don't make it a year," said Dicke, "so we don't know if it was learning to hunt and wasn't doing well, or if it had an injury that slowed it down."