Barn Owl – conservation hand book

By The Barn owl Trust

Isbn – 978-1-907807-14-5

Isbn – 978-1-907807-34-3 [e book]

Published by Pelagic Publishing

July 2012

softback

Pages 395

Price £39.99

This is the work of David Ramsden and all at the Barn owl Trust covering over 20 years of dealing with this species in south west England. The book is aimed to help any one who works with Barn Owl especially planners of roads, houses and buildings at large where Barn owls may be found. It is also to help people carrying out Barn Owl work such as surveys, licencing, management of the land and especially the use of poison which sadly has had a dramatic effect on many species which the poison is not intended for. [secondary poisoning]

Having worked with Barn owls myself for over 30 years this book is a dream to get the story over to politicians, councils and the general public that we can not expect some species to survive if we are continually destroying the environment. I love the ‘Wildlife Tower’ which incorporates a Barn owl nest site. The price is nothing when building a new house or renovating the old barn where the barn owl used to live. The traffic problem certainly needs a lot more work doing on it but planting large roads to keep the owls off them seems justified especially when you could save a human life with scrub slowing down a crash.

The real problem comes in the shape of poison which readers of this review may well be using. You can buy it over the counter with no training or thought on secondary poisoning and too often the rodents you are trying to kill are there due to you using bird food in the garden. It is devastating to know that in some areas 89% of barn owls can carry poison in their liver! Two staggering statistics are a wet barn owl can gain between 27 – 77% of its weight and prevent it hunting properly and this owl can locate sound better than any bird presently tested. This is a great addition to your book collection especially if you love these birds as so many of you do.