Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife

For the 5th year, Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife held their Ground Owl Day at Pelican Baseball Complex in Cape Coral. A short ceremony celebrated the ground owl seeing its shadow and adding 6 more weeks of winter to Southwest Florida.

Passionate defenders of Cape Coral’s burrowing owls are livid now that tractors are clearing debris from Hurricane Ian out of the city’s canals and possibly crushing dozens of owl and gopher tortoise burrows.

Pasha Donaldson, vice president of the Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife, does not know how many of the cape’s 3,500 burrowing owls fared during Hurricane Ian. But she does know of a way residents can help the animals that surivived the storm remain alive.“Please don’t put your trash on top of” their burrows, Donaldson said. That’s “that big thing for people dumping trash.”The burrowing owl occupies not just self-dug burrows, but can make a home in the ends of a drainage culvert underneath driveways, underneath a porch, or where a post used to be. Donaldson said to trap the owls down in their homes for the days or weeks it takes for the piles of trash created by Hurricane Ian could be deadly.

On Saturday, February 26, the Friends of Cape Coral Wildlife hosted the 20th Anniversary Burrowing Owl Festival. Instead of enjoying educational exhibits and hearing presentations from experts at Rotary Park in Cape Coral, WGCU joined a busload of photographers (and two experts) to go in search of the city bird and other feathered friends.