INTERNATIONAL OWL CENTER, HOUSTON, USA:
Twenty years after Jonathan Haw started
owlproject.org, 260,000 children and their parents have participated in the program. As a result, a simple question to almost any urban South African child regarding owls will be met with the instantaneous answer, "they eat rats.'' Many informal settlement schools now enjoy occupied owl boxes of their own and participate in owl pellet dissection programs that contribute greatly to owl/prey data analysis.
Owlproject.org is expanding into other parts of South Africa as well as into neighbouring African countries. In Africa, with its kaleidoscope of problems from poverty to corruption to political and social unrest, the maxim "Without education there can be no conservation" could not be more true.
Owlproject.org has received the Birdlife Africa Award for Conservation as well as a World Owl Hall of Fame Special Achievement Award.
Jonathan Haw founded
owlproject.org almost 20 years ago with the purpose of introducing young black South African children to the wonderful world of owls, their beauty, and their enormous potential as partners in the control and management of rats within the often rodent-infested and impoverished communities in which they live. In order to achieve this, it was essential to demystify the negative stigma attached to owls in Southern Africa.
Jonathan is giving a presentation for the International Owl Center on
Sunday, 20th December at 21h00. It is free, but you must register with the International Owl Center to attend the webinar
here. Alternatively, you can watch the live stream on our YouTube Channel
here. This program will be saved for later viewing.
