Posted by Joyce on December 15, 2004

Q: We have great horned owls around our house who have become pests. They have packed off several of our cats, and I saw one try to pick up our cocker spaniel one night. Our neighborhood constantly has signs up for missing animals. I have tied big plastic garbage bags in our trees to try to keep them away, but last night there was one just 5 feet from our back door, and it was all over our little 4' fish pond. HELP! I am afraid every time our animals go outside. This has been a problem now for several years. Is there anything that we can do to keep them away?

A: Your story makes me think of an owl problem that a Long Island duck farmer had. A duck farmer in Long Island was having nightly owl raids on his animals and finally resorted to shooting the owls. He had obtained a permit to do this (at least this is the story) but soon after each owl was killed, another moved into his area and began the same nightly scenario. After killing several birds he realized that as he removed the local owl from its territory, owls in surrounding areas would then move into the vacated territory as replacements. Finally the farmer decided he needed to deter the resident owls from attacking his ducks rather than removing them altogether. The farmer set up spot lights and a loud siren so each time an owl came into the immediate area, the lights would go on and sirens play. Soon the owls learned that his area was NOT a friendly location and stopped coming to the farm for easy food. Of course, these same resident "informed" owls now kept all other "uninformed" owls out of the area too.

So...this leads me to the notion that you may be able to disuade your local owls from coming to your yard. How could you do this? If you're actually seeing the owls, you might want to obtain a bright spotlight/flashlight that you could use to focus on the birds when they arrive. They'll hate the light shined in their face and may quickly get the message that your yard is not a good place to hunt. Of course, at 2am you're not going to want to be watching for owls but this may help for times in early evening and/or when your animals are outside for a potty break. I'm a cat lover myself, but once I learned just how many animals cats kill on their nightly wanderings, I began keeping mine in the house - that would solve part of your problem.

Keep in mind that the owls are simply doing what owls do, they have to eat and your pets may be small enough for their attention. Owls are protected by federal laws so don't get a gun or other lethal material involved, you can get into big trouble. Incidently, the owl isn't going to be interested in your fish pond animals so I wouldn't worry about that. Owls are mostly interested in small mammals and an ocassional bird.

I know I haven't given you much to work with but hope this gets you started. My best to you and your pets.

John Wiessinger ( December 15, 2004)

A: Dear Joyce, An interesting dilemma indeed! It is known that at night Great Horned Owls will take small free roaming pets when they can. It's hard to blame the Owl though because it cannot distinguish between feral or tame prey.

Owls and other raptorial birds are an integral part of nature's web of life and do a marvelous job of controlling pest species like mice and rats. Losing a dear pet is always tough, even when the master of the night sky is to blame!

An average hunting territory for a pair of Great Horned Owls is 10 square miles of open land mixed with forest. An average nesting territory is 10 acres of forest. This size makes controlling it almost impossible. My only advice is to keep pets on a leash and don't let them wander at night . Jim Berry - Roger Tory Peterson Institute

Jim Berry ( December 16, 2004)