Wildlife advocates say burrowing owls survived January flooding, but dying from rat poison

​January’s unusual flash flooding event in Cape Coral didn’t cause a huge drop in the threatened adult burrowing owl population.

But had January’s floods occurred in April, when young burrowing owls are underground in their nests, things could have been different.

“When we get rain, the owls just fly up out of their nests and maybe go into a tree or into somebody’s front yard,” Janet Windisch of Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife told NBC2 News.

“But the little chicks can’t fly, so if it had rained later in March or April, we would be in trouble,” she continued.

Given the break the birds received with the timing of January’s record rains, it’s unfortunate that human-related issues are once again threatening their survival.

The struggles these birds experience with habitat loss are well known. Making things worse is the impact of rat poison on their food supply, especially since Hurricane Ian.