Reader\'s Digest Canada - 05.2020

(PREVIOUS SPREAD) JARED HOBBS/ALL CANADA PHOTOS

McCulligh had worked non-stop

for four days straight at the Northern

Spotted Owl Breeding Program, a

wooded 10-hectare facility in Lang-

ley, B.C., largely funded by the provin-

cial government. As the breeding

centre’s multi-tasking coordinator and

spotted owl specialist, she was on call

while the owlet hatched over 85 hours.

Now she lay on the floor, exhausted.

The one-day-old owlet crumpled in his

plastic tray, crying, its distressed peeps

ringing throughout the room.

McCulligh knew the breeding centre

couldn’t afford to lose this newborn. At

that point in time, in April 2017, only

an estimated six spotted owls were

left in B.C.’s wild, even though scien-

tists had been sounding the alarm for

decades about the destruction of the

species’ ancient rainforest habitat.

The breeding centre had hatched just

eight other spotted owls in 10 years.

Raising spotted owls at the world’s

only breeding centre for the species

is part science and part educated

guesswork. A dearth of information

about spotted owls in captivity means

biologists can’t google what to do if a

bird falls ill. And then there’s the

unanswered question of why spotted

owls in captivity take so long to have

sex. One male and female at the cen-

tre surprised scientists by sharing an

The spotted owlet lay in his incubator,

refusing bits of rat muscle offered on

tweezers. His skin had the texture of a

plucked chicken, and errant white feathers

stuck up at odd angles, making him one

of the most pathetic-looking creatures

biologist Jasmine McCulligh had ever seen.

reader’s digest

84 may 2020