Does city give a hoot about owls?
By Daniel DeBolt Mountain View, California, U.S.A. – With the burrowing owl as its poster child, the Audubon Society has started a campaign to make Shoreline Park into an owl preserve, and hopes to halt development of two playing fields planned to go on 12 acres of owl foraging grounds there. The campaign comes as a surprise to the city’s youth sports leagues, which have been waiting hopefully for the long-sought-after Shoreline ball fields ever since the City Council signaled its support for them in January of last year. As of press time, 150 people had signed an Audubon Society petition calling for a “large and contiguous burrowing owl preserve to protect and enhance (the) burrowing owl’s natural habitats” at Shoreline. The local Audubon chapter is advertising the campaign on its Web site (www.scvas.org), and members have been writing letters to City Council members, posting on the Voice’s Town Square forum and advocating for a preserve during General Plan hearings. “We want more tha
