Photo courtesy of King County
King County Parks resource coordinator Mike Crandell holds a young Great Horned owl shortly after it was found on the ground at King County’s Marymoor Park near Redmond last April.

County hopes birds will help control vole population

Two rescued juvenile Great Horned owls were released back into the wild recently at a pair of King County facilities on the Eastside. The owls, found as babies at King County’s Marymoor Park last April, were released at separate locations - one at the park and the other at a former King County landfill near Duvall.

When discovered on the ground by parks staff in April, the two baby owls could not fly and had little chance of survival. The owls, named Mary and Moor, were captured and transported to the Sarvey Wildlife Center in Arlington. After three months of nurturing from both the Sarvey Wildlife Center staff and surrogate parent owls that taught the orphans to hunt live mice and fend for themselves, the owls were ready to be released.

“Hunting is instinctual for the owls, but the wildlife center wanted to make sure the owls were ready before they let them go,” said Mike Crandell, the King County Parks resource coordinator who released the young owls. “The release went well. Now it’s just a matter of settling into their surroundings.”

As part of King County’s integrated pest management program, it is hoped one of the young owls will help control a rising vole population. Coordinating with the Solid Waste Division, Parks staff released the owl at a tree cover on a closed county landfill near Duvall, where voles have become a problem. Voles are small, common rodents, whose diet includes the bark of trees.

“The voles are girdling, or stripping the bark, of planted trees at the landfill,” said Anne Holmes, project manager for the landfill. “We are optimistic this young owl will make the area its home and, with a steady diet of voles, help reduce the vole population and damage to the trees.”

King County’s integrated pest management program encourages chemical free methods to control pests.

Owls are natural predators of voles and King County has already placed owl boxes and perches at the landfill to encourage owls or hawks to take up residence there. Marymoor Park has had a nesting pair of Great Horned owls for many years.

For more information about integrated pest management in King County, click on http://www.govlink.org/hazwaste/interagency/ipm/aboutipm.html. Visit the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks at http://dnr.metrokc.gov/.

Learn more about the Sarvey Wildlife Center at http://www.sarveywildlife.org/.