WILDLIFE experts urge people to help save barn owls from habitat loss.
Yorkshire Wildlife Trust wants to help the native barn owl after their numbers declined by 70 per cent in the UK since the 1930s due, conservationists believe, to a run of bad winters and the prolonged snow of March 2013.
The Trust wants to restore large areas of grassland and put nest boxes across Yorkshire to help barn owls recover.
Dr Rob Stoneman, the trust’s chief executive, said: “One of the main reasons behind this 70 per cent decline is the widespread loss of grassland habitat and natural nesting sites.
“Since the end of the Second World War, 97 per cent of the UK’s natural lowland grasslands have either been ploughed up or built upon. Barn owls also have far fewer nesting sites due to tree loss and barn restoration.
"This loss of habitat, along with the widespread use of agricultural chemicals like rodenticides, left UK barn owls with an estimated 4,000 breeding pairs in the mid 2000’s. Now the number of breeding pairs is thought to be as low as 1,000.”
To find out more go to ywt.org.uk/barnowl
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