birding-aus
Hello all,
Following is a letter I put in our local BOCA newsletter (Cairns
Frogmouth):
Owl Massacre - Stan Emmerson
Early in the morning on 12.3.98 I left Mt Garnet for the drive to
Georgetown. As I was driving through the '40 Mile Scrub' I saw a dead
Boobook Owl on the road. It had been run over in the middle of the road
during the night . I stopped & noticed it had been feeding on a large green
grasshopper. Driving off, I had only gone 1 km when there was another dead
one. Then 4 Kms further on a dead Tawny Frogmouth. Between 'the scrub' and
Mt Surprise I stopped & examined 6 freshly killed Boobooks & 1 Frogmouth.
That was bad enough, but between Mt Surprise and Georgetown there were
another 3 dead Boobooks. All were killed the previous night which was
bright with a full moon and grasshoppers were everywhere. Whether it was a
speeding 'road train' (that slows down for nothing) that killed them all, or
some irresponsible driver that needs to be educated on the need to drive
around these birds whilst feeding I will never know. Total killed:13 (10
in 60 Kms. then 3 more in the next 90 Kms.)
Cheers, Stan
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