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Coming Soon! The Second Annual ORC Yard Sale
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Last year ORC supporters donated items for a yard sale held at Christa McAuliffe School parking lot in Oxnard. The June date has not yet been set for this event but we plan to do it again.
ORC made $245 at last year’s yard sale and can easily do that again with your help. Start sorting your stuff and let us know via the website when you have it ready.
Children's clothing and small electronics sold really well as did plants. We'll be happy to pick up and store anything you've accumulated in the way of cast-offs.
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Owl resides in Concrete condo
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Dominic Schmidt, a local construction worker at the Oxnard Airport, noticed that a burrowing owl had moved into a pile of broken asphalt. A fellow worker mentioned the Ojai Raptor Center (ORC) as a source of information on owls. The owl in question moved into debris piles at the airport several months ago and resides in a pile of asphalt chunks or in the pipe pictured here. Workers have noticed the owl’s early morning activity.
Available habitat for burrowing owls has steadily been decreasing as development continues on the Oxnard Plain, and this owl has become a species of special concern in Southern California. The fate of this particular burrowing owl was uncertain but after living in a pile of asphalt for months, the owl avoided the various traps set for it and set off for another home. Dominic says he has the ORC number if they need help again.
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Flight Cages Taking Shape!
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Injured raptors are cared for in cages until they are strong enough to fly. ORC has built a 100-foot long flight cage with sturdy perches and an enclosed area where healing birds can locate and kill live prey, as they’ll need to do when released. Work is continuing at ORC’s “West Campus” site on new flight cages. Injured birds will be housed at a building on-site. Four flight cages have been completed to date: two 24’ long and two that are 50’ long. Red-Shouldered and Coopers’ hawks as well Great-Horned and Barn Owls will soon be occupying those enclosures while red-tailed Hawks will remain in the existing 100’ flight cage until the largest flight cage in the new facility is completed.
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The largest enclosure will be 260’ long designed in an L-shape to help larger birds exercise their wings with left and right turns. Minimum size specifications for these enclosures are regulated by the California Department of Fish and Game and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Additional funding is needed to complete the largest flight cage and plans are being re-submitted to the Ventura County Building and Safety Dept. to pare down the anticipated cost of $80,000 for completion. Funds for these efforts have so far been provided by earlier fund-raisers, private donations and grants. ORC received the funds for the steel for these cages from an anonymous donor.
Plans for the spring include work on intermediate length cages for healing birds and smaller caging for non-raptors. These structures have been carefully designed to protect the birds from the elements and from predators. Work on the site has been done by local volunteers including Patagonia employees. The site has been beautified with native plants and fruit trees.
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Kim Stroud, Executive Director of the Ojai Raptor Center, started her career as a wildlife rehabilitator with Jerry Thompson, Director of the Raptor Rehabilitation and Release Program (RRR) when his application for a monetary grant from Patagonia (where Kim worked as a sample room technician) was turned down. The head of the Patagonia’s Environmental Department put out an e-mail asking for volunteers to work at RRR, and that was the beginning of a passion which has grown into the Ojai Raptor Center. Kim received an environmental internship from Patagonia that allowed two months’ paid leave to work at RRR and train in the specialty of birds of prey. During that first season, she took in several orphaned great horned owls to raise and release for RRR.
This grew into a need for a second facility as Kim was working with rehabilitators in the Ojai Area who had previously been affiliated with Santa Barbara. After working under Jerry’s permit for a year and a half and taking in 1500 animals, they applied for and received a permit from the California Department of Fish and Game and the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service, and formed Wildlife Care of Ventura County (WCVC).
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After serving on the board of directors of WCVC for 8 years, Kim incorporated the Ojai Raptor Center (ORC) in 2000 with her own permits from the State and Federal agencies.
ORC took in 400 animals in its first year of operation and has grown annually to the current 1300 animals per year (including 500 raptors and over 600 songbirds, as well as many opossums and other small mammals). ORC’s goal is to release as many animals as possible. Last year 60% of the animals taken in were released. Of the 40% not released, some succumbed to their injuries and other animals were transferred to other rehabilitators or, if they couldn’t be released, were placed at other licensed facilities. Non-releasable raptors from ORC have been sent to facilities in California, Illinois, Vermont, Alaska, Oregon, New Mexico, Indiana, and Washington. ORC receives approximately 3,000 phone calls annually, especially during nesting season, regarding injured or abandoned birds and animals.
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Our Educational Directive
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Education is a key component of ORC. We host a menagerie of 20 education birds that are non-releasable due to injuries they have sustained. These ambassadors have become familiar to local clubs, libraries, classrooms, and festival-goers in educational presentations about local wildlife, conservation and environmental issues.
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In 2007, ORC leased land from HELP of Ojai at the former Sheriff’s Honor Farm to build a new Rehabilitation Center with conditioning flight cages and housing for wildlife. Progress has been slow but steady in preparing more professional and larger facilities for raptors and other wildlife on their way to release back to the wild. $80,000 is needed to complete work on this new improved facility. ORC plans to be operational at the new site by Spring, 2010.
From a simple request for volunteers in 1993, Ojai Raptor Center has grown to become a leading rehabilitation center in Southern California serving the public in rehabilitating and educating about local wildlife.
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Become a member of Ojai Raptor Center!
Ojai Raptor Center (ORC) has made the jump to becoming a membership organization. You are invited to join!
Your $25 annual dues (which are fully tax deductible) will entitle you to the following benefits:
• Our new quarterly newsletter (via e-mail)!
• Pre-sale ticket sales on any upcoming concert or fundraiser!
• A 10% discount on Ojai Raptor Center concession items, t-shirts, calendars, totes, etc.!
Your support will be an immense help in keeping our new site running smoothly. Most of you contribute already, so now you will also receive!
Thanks for your continued support in the care of our local wildlife.
This will be on a calendar year basis, so join now via our website, accepting Visa, MC, Amex and Pay Pal. The membership purchase and newsletter are available only on our website to keep postage cost / paper use down.
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by Jo Ann Van Reenan
Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl by Stacey O’Brien (Free Press, ©2008) is a good read for anyone interested in owl/human relations.
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The author, who worked at CALTECH with raptors, takes in an injured barn owl that she names Wesley. The story of their lives together has many humorous details, such as the effect of taking a baby owl with her on a date, as well as spiritual aspects when the author becomes seriously ill. I finished the book impressed with O’Brien’s observations of their many years together but not wanting to raise an owl at home. The book is available at 5 branches of the Ventura County Library system. You can view a talk by the author on YouTube.
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The eagles are again readying nests on Santa Cruz and Catalina Islands. K-10 (the male) and K-26 are eagles that were fostered into nests on Catalina Island and have been nesting on Santa Cruz since 2006. They produced Princess Cruz, a healthy female and the first naturally-born bald eagle chick on the island in 50 years, in 2006.
You can watch the eagles work by connecting to the “Channel Islands Live!” webcam (Unfortunately the two chicks born this year did not survive. Biologists do not have definitive answers as to why they died prematurely.). Hundreds of children in the Ventura County school system have accessed the webcam and some post observations throughout the nesting season.
The eagles are currently doing ‘nestorations" (as the eagle fans call the annual nest tidying) and it’s hoped that they will again produce healthy offspring.
There are two other bald eagle cams on Catalina Island. The webcam project is headed by Dr. Peter Sharpe of the Institute for Wildlife Studies (IWS) and funded by the Montrose Settlements Restoration Program, in partnership with IWS, the Ventura County Office of Education, the National Park Service, San Francisco Zoo, and The Nature Conservancy.
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Meet Our Volunteers
No non-profit organization could survive without its dedicated volunteers. This column will highlight the background of some of our volunteers.
The Ojai Raptor Center has more than thirty active volunteers. Tawny McLellan is one of our most active volunteers, working as web master and bird handler. Tawny is a personal fitness trainer, working out of her home in Ojai, but her garage is the temporary home to 80-166 barn owl chicks each year between March and September.
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Tawny first learned of ORC's work at a bird program at the Ojai Museum and asked director Kim Stroud if she needed help. She began working as a volunteer five years ago. Besides crafting the ORC website, Tawny stepped in to take over acting as foster parent to orphaned barn owl chicks when a long-time volunteer was no longer able to do that.
Barn owls can breed up to three times a year if there's a good rodent population and can have up to ten chicks. They often lay their eggs in hay in barns and when the hay is moved, the chicks can be separated from their parents. Tawny and her husband, Mike, raise the chicks in their garage in boxes which simulate the nest cavities barn owls utilize in the wild. They minimize personal contact with the baby barn owls while feeding them, to avoid imprinting.
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After about 8 weeks the chicks are ready to move to a flight cage where they learn to kill prey on their own. An exception to that is “Tito,” a barn owl who was raised in the McLellan kitchen, where he became acclimated to the McLellan dogs and grew accustomed to being handled and taking car trips. Tito is a regular on the education bird circuit and is non-releaseable due to injuries sustained when he fell from a palm tree that was being trimmed by tree trimmers at the wrong time of year. Tito suffered a broken wing and a broken leg which healed improperly.
Tawny has also taken in nests of orphaned songbirds and her neighbors drop off injured birds for her to tend. In addition to barn owls, she's worked with kestrels and great horned owls. She considers this volunteer work very rewarding.
Volunteers are especially needed during the spring! If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please contact the raptor center.
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What to Do if you find an Injured Bird
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Is the animal really in need of help? Are its parents nearby? Is it injured? Is it sick?
We receive quite a few healthy animals that are just learning to fly. Sometimes the first flight lands them in a bad area and they need help getting back to a safe spot. If a bird looks healthy and its parents are nearby, you can try to put it back in a shrub or tree. (Dogs and cats pose a serious threat to a downed bird, so do remove it from harm's way.) Then observe the parents to make sure they are feeding their chicks.
If the bird is too young to fly or injured, then it will need assistance. Carefully place the bird in a box filled with towels or shredded paper. Keep it warm, dry, quiet and in the dark until you can reach a rehabilitator.
Do not try to feed it. Your first instinct may be to feed a baby, but each species has specific dietary requirements. If an animal is emaciated or dehydrated, feeding it could cause internal damage. However, a small amount of water is okay.
These are wild animals. Their teeth or talons are sharp weapons. When approaching a large raptor or mammal, take precautions to protect yourself. Wear gloves or use a towel or blanket to throw over the animal. Contain it as quickly as possible. And be careful, many birds striking distance is farther than you think. If you feel the animal is too dangerous to handle, call for assistance:
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Ojai Raptor Center – (805) 649-6684 or (805) 667-4727
Wildlife Care of Ventura County – (805) 498-2794
Ventura Animal Regulation – (805) 388-4341
Humane Society of Ventura County – (805) 646-6505
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About the Ojai Raptor Center
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Ojai Raptor Center is dedicated to the rehabilitation and release of orphaned and injured birds of prey and to providing education programs to teach about raptors and our shared environment, reduce common hazards to wildlife and decrease the number of raptors that require assistance.
Our volunteers are trained in the care and handling of raptors. We receive injured or orphaned birds from all over Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles counties and assess them for injuries and illnesses, rehabilitate them, and release them back into nature.
In addition to rehabilitating birds, we use environmental education to further the survival of avian species, as well as others. Through our wildlife education program, we cover environmental and ecological concerns, teach about wildlife in our community and explain what individuals can do to help. We bring live, non-releasable ambassadors into the classroom to illustrate the behaviors, characteristics and essential roles each raptor plays in its natural habitat.
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