Why these owls need our help

Burrowing owls need a lot of space -- roughly about 200 acres -- to hunt for food. They are winter residents at Banning Ranch, one of the last stretches of privately-owned undeveloped land on Southern California’s coast.

These owls got their name from the underground burrows they live in. They’re low to the gron with brown spotted features, long legs and what look like white “eyebrows” above large yellow eyes. They eat mice, moles and other small mammals and insects.

The owls are waning in their historic range. The Western burrowing owls migrate and return to Banning Ranch each year because it’s a good nesting site.

The owls that hunt on the 400 acres of onetime oil fields near Newport Beach should be safe--but they’re not. Nor are the osprey, least terns, red foxes and California gnatcatchers which also call this coastal habitat home.

The California Coastal Act protects “environmentally sensitive habitat areas” as a haven for vulnerable animals and plants, but that’s not how it may play out for the owls and their neighbors.

Right now the land is still being considered for development -- despite the foraging needs of the burrowing owl.

Think that’s a bad idea? You can tell the California Coastal Commission yourself at a hearing Sept. 7 to 9 in Newport Beach when the Banning Ranch plan will be discussed. And you can join the Sierra Club’s Banning Ranch Task Force and work to keep the natural coast intact.

To get involved, contact Terry Welsh at (949) 478-1757 or email BanningRanch@angeles.sierraclub.org