Injured in the Thomas Fire, recovered barn owl flies home

Ventura

Sitting in the dark in a carrying cage at Ventura's Cemetery Memorial Park, the barn owl was almost home.

Jaclyn DeSantis of the Ojai Raptor Center prepares to release a barn owl injured in the Thomas Fire.

He was found near here, curled up in a ball on a basketball court outside Cabrillo Middle School, two months ago. Injured in the Thomas Fire, he struggled to breathe. He couldn't maintain his balance, much less fly.

"He was in the thick of it," said Jaclyn DeSantis, noting that a territorial nature meant the owl likely didn't flee when the fire approached the barn or tree hollow he called home.

Instead, he is believed to have been caught in a fire that destroyed more than 1,000 homes and other structures. It consumed or displaced everything in its path including this bird with a trademark screech that belongs in a Freddy Krueger movie.

"It had head trauma. It was covered in ash," DeSantis said.

Thanks to a phone call from Cabrillo night custodian Joey Garcia, the injured bird was rescued. It was taken from the middle school to the Ojai Raptor Center, which rescues and rehabilitates eagles, hawks and other birds of prey.

His head twitched uncontrollably. He couldn't hunt. Instead, he ingested liquid protein fed through tubes.

Maybe most alarming, the owl was so docile it allowed caretakers to touch him.

"Any wild animal that lets a human touch it or approach it usually means there's something wrong," said DeSantis, a rehabilitation supervisor at the raptor center. "They process humans as their predators."

When the owl arrived at the center, volunteers and staff were still recovering from their own trauma.

The fire burned so close the animals were evacuated with the birds most in need of continuing treatment sent to a care center in Santa Barbara. Some nearly recovered birds were released into the wild.

About 25 birds, including the so-called ambassadors that are shown in educational presentations and in the private center's twice-a-year open houses, were sent to volunteer Geralyn Fenwick's home near the beach in Ventura.

"I bet it's the only time there's been a golden eagle in a backyard in Pierpont," Fenwick said. For three nights, she housed guests including falcons, hawks and a great horned owl.

"You could hear all night, 'Hoo-hoo,'" she said.

DeSantis lived northwest of Ojai. Her rental home was damaged in the fire, destroying many of her belongings and forcing a move to new digs in Oak View.

"I have PTSD when I hear strong winds. I start to shake," she said more than two months later. "It takes me back to the first night.

The territorial tendencies mean it's likely many of the raptors didn't fly from the fire, instead died in it. The only other raptor taken to the center, a soot-covered peregrine falcon, was too badly injured to recover.

But the owl thrived. He spent two weeks in the raptor center's hospital. When he was able to eat on his own, he was moved to an outside enclosure.

He started flying again and letting loose with his high-pitched scream. The once docile owl again treated his caretakers as the enemy. A liquid diet graduated to mice — as many as six in a night.

"It's hunting," DeSantis said. "It's doing everything it needs to do to be out in the wild."

So on Friday night, DeSantis and Fenwick prepared to release the bird. They waited for people to finish walking their dogs at a park framed by Main and Poli streets.

Cemetery Memorial was picked for the owl's release because of its proximity to Cabrillo Middle School. The owl's built-in radar would help it return to its original home.

And if he had a mate, she would be waiting for him.

The women worried about the owl and other birds of prey trying to return to roosts destroyed in the fire. That's why raptor center staff is offering some property owners on the edge of the wilderness perches and boxes that serve as homes for raptors.

"They're known as a farmer's best friend," DeSantis said of the birds' value as rodent hunters.

The owl's release needed to be made at dusk because an earlier freeing would bring mobbing attacks from crows looking to defend their territories.

It had to be made in an area free of bait boxes that use poison to trap rodents. When raptors feed on rats and mice, they can ingest the poison.

The park quieted after sunset. DeSantis pulled on protective gloves and reached into the blue carrier. She grabbed the owl's legs as he flapped white wings.

She counted to three and tossed the bird into the air. He soared to a palm on Aliso Lane. The women pointed at the sky, tracking the bird's path to palms along Poli Street.

"There he is," they shouted, then spotting another pair of wings in the sky. They wondered if it was a second owl.

Later, DeSantis stood under a street light and speculated it would take time for the owl to find its bearings. Then he would return to his home.

She felt no mixed emotions, no sadness.

"This is what we do our work for," she said. "This is success."