Barn owls (lulu) - spirit of the night
The barn owl or lulu is a highly beneficial bird in American Samoa, but some people fear it because they associate it with ghosts or aitu. Its ghostly white appearance and its preference for flying at night enhance its reputation as a mysterious bird. It is not uncommon when driving around Tutuila at night to see one perched on a telephone pole or gliding across the road. Its eerie screech pierces the night and can be frightening if you are not expecting it.
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| Used with permission from Dick Watling from “Birds of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa” and “Birds of Fiji and Western Polynesia” (Pacificbirds.com). |
Owls are carnivores that usually swallow their prey whole. A few hours after swallowing a rat (isumu) or some other prey, owls regurgitate or spit out a pellet of indigestible bones and hair about two inches long and one inch in diameter. By examining these pellets, we can determine what the lulu eats. In the remains of 482 meals, rats made up most (81%) of those meals, followed by mice (9%), geckos (7%), and bones of a few birds (2%), which consisted of White Terns (manu sina), Wattled Honeyeaters (iao), mynas, and Samoan Starlings (fuia).
No chicken remains were found, but this was not unexpected because owls do not generally attack large prey. Chickens and fruit bats (pe'a) are too heavy for an owl to carry and too large to swallow whole. Instead, they would typically eat the meat and viscera at the site of the kill. Soft tissues such as these would be totally digested and not be found in pellets. We have other evidence that one flying fox was killed and partially eaten by an owl.
Even
though lulu occasionally take a bird, bat or even a chicken, their
value in controlling rat populations is tremendous. One pair of owls
may catch 2-4 rats per day. Without owls, Tutuila and Manu'a would probably
be over-run with rats. A lulu seen flying through a village should
not be feared or hated but welcomed, because it will probably mean one
less rat near your fale.
Gilbert S. Grant, DMWR