DuBois students band owls
as part of national project

Field data collected by some Penn State DuBois wildlife technology students will help researchers develop a better understanding of a little-known owl species.

This fall, second-year students in the campus Wildlife Technology associate-degree program conducted an owl-banding project in the Brockway watershed.

Over a three-week period in late October-early November, students netted and banded Northern saw-whet owls in the forest near Brockway as part of a growing nationwide operation called Project Owlnet.

"The purpose of Project Owlnet is to expand the general knowledge of these owls through the creation of a network of banding stations across North America where researchers can collect data on the species and their migration patterns," explained Charles Schaadt, assistant professor of wildlife technology at the campus.

Established by David Brinker, an ecologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Project Owlnet has grown from a series of five cooperating saw-whet owl banding stations across Maryland to sites in New Jersey, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada.

The Penn State DuBois site has the distinction of being the only banding station in the Allegheny Highlands. It was launched after Schaadt met Scott Weidensaul, a Pennsylvania wildlife author who has been actively recruiting new banders to cover the state.

"Scott and I believed the time was right to expand the project into northcentral Pennsylvania, where vast amounts of forests provide the right habitat for the saw-whet," he said.

With assistance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the Brockway Water Authority, the campus acquired the necessary permits and the stage was set to begin.

During the project, students worked side-by-side with Schaadt and faculty members Joseph Hummer and Keely Tolley Roen as they prepared the site and then collected the research material.

Together, they followed a complex protocol established by Project Owlnet that outlined everything from the proper nets to use, to how to place an audio lure and the necessary data to record.

Each night over the three weeks, small groups of students entered the woods at dusk and remained until nearly midnight, checking the nets each hour to see if their taped recordings of saw-whet calls had lured any into the area. Captured owls were carefully removed and taken to a banding station, set up in a tent, where students took various measurements, checked molt patterns to determine age and sex, and recorded field conditions. Faculty members then banded each bird and supervised the release.

Nearly 40 owls were banded this year, reported Schaadt, who said the program was such a success with students he hopes to conduct it for a longer period next year.