At least here in North America, zoos seem to be sorely lacking in owls and especially species that are not native to the continent (with the exception of spectacled owls). After doing some browsing, I have found that there is quite an intriguing diversity of owl species around the world. With that being said, what are some cool, interesting, and/or less common owl species that you have encountered in zoos?
Intresting thread Coelacanth18 ! 20 - 30 years ago owl-collections were quite large at several zoos and birdparks and there were even some collections heavily specialized in owls ( in the UK several smaller collections as well as in Germany - for example Timmendorfer Strand which claimed to have the largest owl-collections world-wide with about 50 - 60 different (sub)species during the 1980-ties). Also zoos like Antwerp Zoo, Berlin Zoo and London Zoo had large owl-collections. Now-a-days ( at least in Europe ) zoos keep a small number of mainly native species - the exeption being the Speclacted owl which also is kept in a large number of zoos. Because of this thread I started to count the number of species I have taken care for myself and came to 24 species ( may have forgotten one or a few species ) : 1) Barn owl 2) Snowy owl 3) European scops owl 4) European pygmy owl 5) European tawny owl 6) Hawk owl 7) Ural owl 8) Great grey owl 9) European eagle owl 10) Long-eared owl 11) Short-eared owl 12) Little owl 13) Tengmalm's owl 14) White-faced scops owl 15) Great horned owl 16) Spotted eagle owl 17) Verreaux eagle owl 18) Buffy fish owl 19) Spectacled owl 20) Burrowing owl 21) Brown wood owl 22) Oriental bay owl 23) Spot-bellied eagle owl 24) Woodford's owl
The Southern Boobook, along with the Spectacled Owl, is probably the most common non-native owl species held in European collections; the two species of White-faced Owl are also quite commonplace. At the present time, the ten largest owl collections in Europe are the following: Scottish Owl Centre - 48 taxa Vogelpark Niendorf - 27 taxa Screech Owl Sanctuary - 34 taxa ICBP Newent - 30 taxa Rodbaston - 28 taxa Cotswold Falconry Centre - 28 taxa Kington Small Breeds and Owl Centre - 25 taxa World of Owls Randalstown - 23 taxa Kirkleatham Owl Centre - 19 taxa Weyhill Hawk Conservancy - 18 taxa Weltvogelpark Walsrode, by the by, barely misses out on the above list having a total of 17 taxa.
Wow, zoos could do a lot good with owls. Owls generally thrive in zoos and breed easily. There are many restricted range species where zoos might build an insurance population. For example Blakiston's Fish Owl, Philippine and Nduk Eagle Owls, many scops and Ninox owls endemic to small islands in the Seychelles/Comoros and Indonesia/Philippines regions. The problem is that obtaining founder animals is impossible. Although Blakiston's Fish Owls are present in zoos in Japan and Philippine Eagle Owls are present in the Philippines.
York Bird of Prey Centre draws with Weyhill, ZTL lists 18 taxa; I will have to check my notes to see how many they had when I last visited (6/2016), which was around this number.
I saw scops and tawny owls at Milwaukee zoo's bird show does anyone know what types of owls are in zoos in the United States(excluding Canada) also are the White Faced Scops owls at Metro Richmond zoo still on display, I went there in November and did not see any.
American zoos keep a wide variety of native owl species, since there are a lot of non-releasable birds that can be trained and used for shows or display. Great horned owls, barn owls, and screech owls are the most common that I've seen. Burrowing owls are common too, but we actually breed those. The only fairly common exotic species in the States to my knowledge are spectacled owls and Eurasian eagle-owls.
Can add another species to my life-list : this year the private collection I'm working at obtained a pair of Tropical screech owls ( Megascops choliba ). Because I showed a great intrest in these birds the owner donated the pair to me so now I have them in my own collection :
