Post provided by LEANNE HEISLER

Today, on International Owl Awareness Day (August 4), we celebrate the research we have done to better understand owls and their prey. There are over 200 extant species of owls, a handful of which have geographic distributions spanning several continents (i.e., barn owl, snowy owl, short-eared owl, long-eared owl). So no matter where you are in the world you’re probably not too far away from an owl.

Ecologists and paleontologists have taken advantage of this to study owls and their prey. One of the most widely used methods for this is collecting and dissecting owl pellets. We discuss some of the major benefits of studying owl pellets in our recent Methods in Ecology and Evolution Review article ‘Owl pellets: a more effective alternative to conventional trapping for broad-scale studies of small mammal communities’. Continue reading →