World Bird Sanctuary: Jersey

Monday, January 24, 2011

Jersey

Meet our newest resident! Her name is Jersey and she is a Barred Owl. Let me tell you her story…

Jersey, the Barred Owl--one of our newest residents

Jersey was hatched in May of 1993 in the Richmond, Virginia area. Her earliest history is not exactly known, but the information that came with her says that she was hand-raised by a rehabilitator in Richmond.

The rehabber tried to release her several times, but Jersey had become imprinted and always came back. When a bird is imprinted, it does not associate itself with others of its species; instead it basically thinks it is a human. The bird doesn’t know how to hunt or survive in the wild and will always look to humans, instead of to its own species. This, of course, is very dangerous to an animal and chances are that it won’t survive in the wild. Lucky for Jersey, she had returned to the place she was familiar with; otherwise, there is a good chance she would have died.

When Jersey kept returning to the rehabber he realized the problem. Unfortunately, he did not have the ability to keep her permanently, so he turned to the Virginia Zoological Park.

In May of 1994 the zoo took her in and she received her first name--Misun. This is the Lakota Sioux word for “Little Brother”. Obviously no one had really looked at Jersey – she is a big girl! In birds of prey, the males are up to one-third smaller than the females and Jersey definitely wasn’t a small owl!

Jersey/Misun was trained to free-fly for the folks at the zoo – she was trained to fly perch to perch or fly to a trainer. She helped them out in their educational programs, but she began to show signs of aggression to her handlers. After about a year, the zoo workers put her in a big free-flight cage and let her be a display bird. After another year had passed, they donated her to the Reptile Gardens in South Dakota.

Jersey/Misun arrived in South Dakota in April of 1996 and she received her next name. This time she was called Steinbeck. Here she stayed for quite some time, doing educational programs for Wildlife Experiences, Inc. a non-profit offshoot of Reptile Gardens. But once again, things were to change. In 2010, Wildlife Experiences, Inc. became another victim of the economic crisis the US has been facing and they were forced to close. Luckily, they contacted us for a new home for their Barred Owl and Jersey/Misun/Steinbeck took one more trip.

Jersey, shortly after she arrived at the World Bird Sanctuary

When she arrived in Nov 2010, she received the name of Jersey. She was named that because her weight when she arrived was just over 3 lbs – a VERY large girl… some of us affectionately referred to her as a cow because she was so large. Also, the Barred Owl’s coloration is brown and white bars or stripes and they have big, beautiful dark eyes. All of these things made me think of the Jersey cows – brown & white, big dark eyes and definitely very heavy. The staff at the Nature Center took a vote and Jersey it was!

Jersey getting accustomed to her new home

Jersey now lives at our Nature Center, enjoying her days outside watching Missouri wildlife and listening to Missouri noises, probably a bit different from her old homes! Please come out and visit her or you can even adopt her and help with her yearly support and care.