Marin County Northern Spotted Owl Population Remains Stable in 2022

By Wildlife Technician Taylor Ellis, San Francisco Bay Area Network Northern Spotted Owl Monitoring Program

Wildlife Technician Caroline Provost uses binoculars to observe a northern spotted owl fledgling. This year, the owl monitoring team located 28 nests. Five failed, but the remainder produced a total of at least 28 fledglings.

NPS / Matt Lau

July 2022 - Each spring, National Park Service staff monitor northern spotted owl breeding activity in national and state parks in Marin County. With the 2022 breeding season now almost over, we’ve found that the local population appears stable. Marin remains the only part of the owl's historic range, which stretches north to Canada, where the population is not in severe decline.

In total, we located 29 nests among the 46 sites they surveyed (not all owl pairs nest every year). Five of the nests failed early in the season, but the remaining nests produced a total of 32 young with one or two fledglings per nest. Surveys continue at a few remaining sites with unknown nesting status (it is possible that we’ll discover more young before surveys are complete). Impacts from barred owls, which take over spotted owl territories when they move into new areas, continue to be low. In fact, this year we found a few spotted owl nests in new places, so the population density in those areas has actually increased.

For a more thorough discussion of the status of spotted and barred owls in Marin, check out our recent brown bag webinar recording.

For more information

• San Francisco Bay Area Network Northern Spotted Owl Monitoring webpage
• Pacific Coast Science & Learning Center Northern Spotted Owls webpage
  • San Francisco Bay Area Northern Spotted Owls Blog
• Contact Wildlife Technician Taylor Ellis

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