Ohio's Barnaby could be world's oldest barn owl
POWELL, Ohio — He has cataracts in one eye and one wing is still gimpy from where a chainsaw hacked part of it off when he was an owlet.
Despite his age, the gaze from his good eye is still sharp and his neck swivels with the speed of a much younger bird.
At 26, Barnaby the barn owl, resident of the Ohio Wildlife Center, might be the oldest living barn owl. Anywhere on Earth. He might be ancient in barn-owl years, but his caretaker said Barnaby thinks he’s a human. So maybe that’s part of his secret.
“He’s very tame,” said Sue Anderson, a volunteer at the Ohio Wildlife Center. “He really doesn’t know he’s an owl.”
Barnaby hasn’t just outlived his counterparts in the wild, he’s outlived them by a lot. On average, barn owls in the wild live two or three years. Researchers at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology say as many as 75 percent of barn owls don’t survive their first year.
Those that live in captivity, such as Barnaby, last a little longer. But few log the years that Barnaby has.
Still, Barnaby isn’t a record-holder yet. That belongs to a barn owl that lived 34 years.
The oldest barn owl in the International Species Information System, a database used by zoos, nature centers and aquariums around the world to track animals, is 24.
But the database is incomplete. Barnaby, for example, isn’t in it. But calls to other havens for owls haven’t turned up an older one.
“There could be somebody out there who is not recorded,” Anderson said. “But as far as we know, he is the oldest one now.”
Barnaby is nearly as old as the Ohio Wildlife Center. He arrived there in 1988, after a homeowner in Pike County cut down a tree that, unbeknownst to him, contained a barn owl nest.
One of Barnaby’s siblings was killed. Barnaby lost part of a wing.
Because of that injury and his close association with humans, Barnaby could never go back to the wild.
“When birds are first born, their eyes are fuzzy, so the first thing they see (in Barnaby’s case, a human), they bond with,” Anderson said. “If he saw a person in the wild, he would fly to them for food. And you can’t trust people.
“We knew he’d never be able to take care of himself.”
The center, which opened in 1984, treats more than 5,000 animals (140 species) each year. It is one of the largest wildlife-rehabilitation centers in the country.
Barnaby is one of 50 or so residents at its Donald L. and Susan Burton Nature Center, said Angie Latham, community-engagement coordinator. They keep birds — owls, turkeys and others. They rehabilitate coyotes, raccoons and reptiles.
Animals that can be rehabilitated for release into the wild rarely interact with humans while they recuperate at the center.
But those like Barnaby, who have little chance of surviving on their own, become ambassadors for their species.
Barnaby is the center’s oldest resident. “He’s our own little local celebrity,” Latham said.
The owl has traveled to hundreds of schools and interacted with thousands of students.
When the Columbus Audubon Center hosted a summit on climate change and its effect on birds, Barnaby was one of the three birds the Ohio Wildlife Center brought to showcase.
These days, however, Barnaby is mostly in retirement.
He sleeps a lot. He likes to be outside when the weather is nice and inside when it’s cold.
Barnaby takes baths in a big bowl. He doesn’t care much for other animals — the dogs, cats and other birds — that live at Anderson’s home.
When he gets hungry, he stomps his feet. He eats mice. (For some reason, he prefers white ones.) Sometimes, he eats chipmunks.
He doesn’t like clowns and he hates balloons.
“If I’m on a program and I see a balloon, I’ll keep myself between the balloons and him,” Anderson said. “He hates them.”
Barn owls in the wild survive on a diet of mice and voles, so Barnaby’s diet isn’t too surprising.
Many of Ohio’s barn owls live in Amish country; the Ohio Department of Natural Resources says the highest concentration of barn owls are in Ross and Holmes counties.
Of the seven owl species that breed in Ohio, four are considered “rare breeders.” One, the barn owl, is listed as threatened in Ohio.
Owls have 14 neck vertebrae, twice as many as humans, which allow them to rotate their necks 270 degrees.
Even at his age, Barnaby’s neck is still limber. On a recent sunny day at the nature center, he hopped across a fallen tree trunk, alert to all nearby birds and chipmunks.
When a truck passed on a nearby road, the noise prompted Barnaby to swivel his head three-quarters of the way around his body.
Anderson said she thinks part of the reason Barnaby has survived so long is that he has no predators and doesn’t have to deal with harsh winters, which often kill barn owls.
Also, he gets good care.
“He’s catered to what he wants or needs,” she said. “He’s safe and comfortable.”