Upper Nicola Band burrowing owl banding event with 4-week old owls, July 4, 2019. (via Brendan Kergin)

They're cute, young and prefer to eat mice.

No, not kindergartners. We're talking about burrowing owls.

Burrowing owls, a species at risk, are being reintroduced in B.C. after disappearing in the 1980s and 1990s. Today (July 4), a group made up of Upper Nicola Band members, local conservationists, birders, government workers and others were part of a celebration as five four-week-old owls were banded, allowing birders and researchers to spot and track the owls as they migrate south into Washington, Oregon and California.

The project, run near Douglas Lake by the Upper Nicola and involving the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of B.C. (BOCS), has seen more than 29 captive-bred owls released since 2016.

"They have produced 53 wild-born young; this year alone, we have 21 young in these burrows with three pairs of owls," biologist Chris Gill told to the crowd. "In 2018, this site alone accounted for nine per cent of the wild-born young in all of B.C."

Loretta Holmes, a member of the Upper Nicola and the burrowing owl field technician for the project, worked with Dawn Brodie, a burrowing owl consultant from BCOS, to weigh the five tiny birds (which came in around 200 g).

"The main goal of this program is to reintroduce burrowing owls to the grasslands area and get their numbers up," she said, adding that raising awareness is an important priority of the program as well.

Burrowing owls live in communities and use badger holes as homes. As badgers were pushed off the land as a nuisance animal, there were fewer homes for the owls. That, mixed with habitat and food loss as land formerly inhabited by the owls was used for agriculture, pushed them out. Conservationists have essentially built a burrowing owl suburbia near Douglas Lake in pristine grassland, with 30 artificial burrows.

"In 2014, I conducted surveys on the reserves with Upper Nicola members and we identified a number of areas that had what I considered high quality burrowing owl habitat," Gill said during her speech, explaining the history of the project. "Speaking with elders and advisers and other community members, we heard there were owls present until the 1990s here."

"The band was interested in going forward with this. We received funding and we started putting artificial burrows in 2015."

The fact that Upper Nicola is involved makes the Douglas Lake site notable.

"A lot of the other reintroduction programs happen on private lands and when those change hands, the new owners may not be interested in carrying on that program," Gill said.

While the burrowing owl is a sort of poster-child for species at risk, Upper Nicola Coun. Brian Holmes spoke about the wider implication of the pristine grasslands ecosystem.

"The reserve lands, because they're so preserved, seems to be a good host for a lot of those species," he said. "I think it's a great initiative to continue to support."

Upper Nicola elder and former chief NKwalal Manuel sang as part of the celebration and explained the significance of owls to the First Nation. Called Snina, owls were used as a sort of a threat in captik (a type of story used to teach a lesson or moral).

"We feared and had respect for Snina and it carries on throughout your life," he explained. "We need discipline in our lives and that's one of the ways we got it when we were very young; the ones who were lucky enough to have grandparents and parents that knew about the old ways."

The five owls that were banded Thursday morning were only some of this year's group. Brodie and Holmes will be continuing (though with less celebration) until all are banded. The banding must happen at a certain point in the owl's growth, when the legs are thick enough to hold the band, but before the birds begin to fly.

For more information about local burrowing owl conservation efforts, click HERE.