Human-driven habitat loss affects wildlife worldwide. While some species cannot adapt, others can navigate new habitats, noise, and human exposure.
One species that has been forced to adapt to human environments is the barred owl.
What’s happening?
A group of educators and their students from William & Mary University in Williamsburg, Virginia, are studying the changed behavior of the barred owl. According to a WMU press release, the university’s biology department chair, Matthias Leu, is leading the study with graduate student Justin Biggerstaff.
Leu’s team is currently tracking a female barred owl in Newport News Park that they had previously caught. She is equipped with a backpack that tracks GPS, activity, and temperature.
Their goal is to find out how a once-thriving predator in a woodland area is adapting to more developed urban landscapes.
“If we can understand how they use this habitat — where they roost, where they hunt, and what areas they avoid — we can provide valuable information about the types of landscapes that support coexistence between wildlife and people,” said Biggerstaff in the press release.
A focus of this study is how urban noise affects animals with advanced hearing like owls. So far, they predict that highway noise impairs owls’ ability to hear their prey and ultimately increases stress.
The risk is greater for first-year owls, too, Biggerstaff added: “When they encounter roads for the first time, they’re unfamiliar with the hazard — and some don’t make it.”
Why is urbanization a risk for wildlife?
If barred owls are more likely to die in their first year, this will ultimately affect population numbers. Mating does not occur until around two years of age, according to the Chesapeake Bay Program. Owls are also less active when traffic noise is higher.
For all those reasons, it’s likely that they will be one of the many species threatened by what scientists have called the “sixth mass extinction.” This event is a human-driven loss of biodiversity due to rising temperatures and habitat disruption that we’re likely facing right now.
In the last 50 years, there has been a 73% decline in monitored populations of wildlife, according to the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2024. This is a direct result of urbanization and rising global temperatures.
It might not seem like losing one species will matter on a grand scale. But our local ecosystems are in a delicate balance among predators and prey as well as available habitats and resources.
What’s being done about urbanization?
This study will continue to examine the owl’s energy use to infer energy expenditure and habitat quality. This will hopefully help researchers assist the owl in maintaining healthy population levels.
On a larger scale, other legislators are approving wildlife bridges to keep animals safe from major highways and human foot traffic.
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