California Burrowing Owls One Step Closer to Permanent State Protections

October 10, 2024

The California Fish and Game Commission unanimously voted today to protect western burrowing owls throughout California as a "candidate" species under the California Endangered Species Act.

"After decades of effort to safeguard declining burrowing owl populations in California, the species has finally been afforded interim state protections where they're most needed - at least for the time being," said Pamela Flick, California program director with Defenders of Wildlife. "With burrowing owls no longer found in one-third of their former territory statewide, these temporary protections aren't coming a moment too soon."

Burrowing owls statewide will be protected while the California Department of Fish and Wildlife conducts a full status review, which could last 12 to 18 months. The commission will then vote on whether to protect the burrowing owls as endangered or threatened under state law.

"At long last there's a glimmer of hope for California's rapidly disappearing burrowing owls, who desperately need protection," said Jeff Miller, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Burrowing owls have dwindled and vanished at an alarming rate around the state as their homes are bulldozed for irresponsible sprawl development. I'm thrilled they're safeguarded for now and look forward to these adorable little owls getting permanent protection."

In March, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Burrowing Owl Preservation Society, Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, Urban Bird Foundation, Central Valley Bird Club and San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society filed a petition with the state commission seeking endangered or threatened status for imperiled burrowing owl populations.

Burrowing owls, the only owl species that nests and roosts underground, have suffered significant habitat loss due to sprawl development, conversion of grasslands to agricultural lands, large-scale wind and solar energy infrastructure development, and killing and removal of ground-dwelling squirrels and other mammals whose underground burrows the owls use for nesting and roosting. The owls are also killed by rodenticides and collisions with wind turbines and cars.

Protecting burrowing owls under the California Endangered Species Act would require state and local agencies to manage these threats. That would include ending the state policy that allows owls to be removed from lands slated for development. It could also require more robust mitigation for habitat loss.

Background

Burrowing owls have been eliminated as a breeding species from almost all of the California coast and are rapidly nearing localized extinction in the Bay Area, where fewer than 25 breeding pairs remain. Only about 225 breeding pairs are left in central-western and southwestern California. Burrowing owl numbers are also declining in the Central Valley, which has fewer than 1,500 breeding pairs, mostly in the southern Central Valley.

The state's strongholds for the species are the Imperial Valley, which has an estimated 4,000 breeding pairs, and the southern Central Valley with around 1,000 pairs. A formerly large population in the Altamont Pass area in eastern Alameda and Contra Costa counties is down to a few hundred pairs and declining rapidly.

Burrowing owls have been eliminated or are nearly wiped out as a breeding species from nearly one-third of their former range in California.