Owlets rescued by sheriff's deputy

Article Date: 2011-04-05   Source: http://www.sbsun.com   Comments: 0

By Jesse B. Gill

Mentone, California, U.S.A. - Seven baby owls are back with their mother after a San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy, during a routine traffic stop on Monday, found them in a bucket.

The deputy pulled over a driver at 11:39 a.m. on Chrysolite Avenue, east of San Bernardino Avenue, in Mentone. The deputy found the young barn owls in a bucket in the back of the vehicle.

The Sheriff's Department notified the Department of Fish and Game and the owls were placed with a wildlife conservation group.

"The owls were handed over to a wildlife conservation group, who were going to assist in returning the owls to their proper place," said sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller.

The driver of the vehicle was not taken into custody, she said.

The Sheriff's Department contacted Lenore Will, 64, of Yucaipa, an animal rehabilitation specialist, to return the owls to their nest in a cement bunker in the Santa Ana River wash, where the man said he'd found them.

"There are 15 to 20 bunkers out there where they used to do rocket testing," Wills said.

A deputy joined Wills as the man who took the barn owls led them to the spot where he found them. Wills put the baby birds back in the nest, she said.

"One of the biggest myths is that parent birds won't take the babies after they've been handled and that's not true," she said. "Almost always, if they blow out of the nest, you can take them back and they'll be fine."

Wills visited the bunker again Tuesday and said the mother owl shooed her off - a good sign that the mother accepted her young back into the nest.

"I'm so happy that the mother took them back," Wills said.

Fish and Game officials will conduct an investigation into why the man had the owls, Miller said.

"He said he was going to sell them to a pet shop," Wills said.

The owls are illegal to possess but the man who found them was not arrested, Miller said.

Wills said she informed the man that all but two California birds - the English sparrow and the starling - are protected by federal laws.

"I reminded (the man) that it can be a felony for messing with birds like that," she said.

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