Looking for a unique gift? How about adopting a burrowing owl

If you are at a loss as to what to give your friends and loved ones this holiday season, how about adopting a burrowing owl for everyone on your list? No, you may not buy owls to give away as pets. But with a donation of as little as $25 to the nonprofit Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife (CCFW), you can help protect the lives of these little creatures by protecting their nesting places.

Cape Coral has the largest population of burrowing owls of any community in Florida. The only bird species that burrow underground, they began to appear in the Cape after land development began.

“The city was built on fill from digging the canals, which proved to be the perfect substrate for the owls,” explains CCFW board member, Cheryl Anderson. “They weren’t here when it was just a piney woods peninsula.”

They are not migratory birds, either. Once they have burrowed in, they won’t move out. They are little homebodies who like to stay close to home.