Home: Species at Risk: Short-eared Owl

Short-eared Owl

Management

Short-eared Owls are highly nomadic and are prone to long migrations based on their response to high densities of small mammals in both breeding and wintering periods. Consequently, range delineation, population monitoring, and habitat suitability assessment in Alberta and other areas is difficult and has not yet been well defined.

There are currently no monitoring, management, or research programs aimed at Short-eared Owls in Alberta. Little information on historic breeding locales and habitat associations has been collected in the province resulting in a lack of understanding of the species' status in the province. The few data available suggest that this species has become less common over the last 30 years. Serious declines in Short-eared Owl populations have occurred in the northeastern United States and Breeding Bird surveys reveal a long-term decline of this owl across Canada.

Reprinted from Alberta Wildlife Status Report No. 28 (2000), with permission from Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.

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