When you're The San Francisco Zoo and you're having a little problem with gophers, who do you call for help? Wildlife Rescue, of course.
Recently, the zoo was overrun with gophers, so zookeepers turned to us for help -- and we turned the matter over to our experts in rodent control: four juvenile barn owls that had been raised by our Raptor Team.
Just ready for release, the barn owls were placed in owl boxes around the zoo -- two near the musk ox enclosure and two near the old kangaroo yard. Although the birds were free to fly away, they stuck around their owl boxes and made the zoo their new home base.
Today, they're taking care of the gopher problem (gophers are a barn owl's favorite food) and the zookeepers are thrilled to have such an effective natural solution to their problem.
Really, it worked out well for everyone -- except, of course, the gophers.
