shadowtriads:

halfhardtorock:

demonladytakkuri:

theraphos:

becausebirds:

Dutch “Cuddly Owl” finally caught on video. This bird has been cuddling the citizens of this town for a while. It likes to land and stomp on people’s heads.

Watch the video

I love owls but I’m pretty sure that bird’s feet could carve your brain out of your fucking skull and this is unsettling to watch.

It most certainly could and likely would.

I looked into this, and this is likely the same bird that has been attacking residents relentlessly enough that they have taken to carrying umbrellas around to defend themselves.

My other theories on this behavior were that it was perhaps an imprint or suffering from a neurological issue, but it seems it may just be incredibly territorial.

Regardless of the specifics, the bird is NOT trying to be cuddly. It is not approaching the humans with friendliness. It was being territorial, and this is an incredibly dangerous thing since eagle owls are such large raptors.

OP. I beg of you. PLEASE do not romanticize this bird’s behavior!! What it’s doing is incredibly dangerous because it’s talons are strong enough to crush bone. It’s smaller, American cousin the great horned owl has one of the strongest grips ever measured on a bird, do you really expect this one to have less dangerous feet? This isn’t a cute little parrot or chicken or duck, this is a bird that can take down hares larger than itself routinely while hunting with no trouble.

It’s not cute that an apex predator that can fly without making a sound has taken to dive bombing people’s heads. The people can get seriously injured, or the bird can. There’s not typically a happy ending to stories like this.

You wouldn’t think it was cute if a lion was jumping on people. Don’t try to pass this off as cute either.

Like ok?? But how useful is this “PLEASE OP dont romaticize apex predators landing on your head!!” psa in the big picture of what can actually happen to people on a daily basis. Tumblr why?

i don’t usually enter discourse but this is something very close to my heart

this isn’t a matter of what can happen to people on a daily basis. absolutely, this isn’t a huge issue in the grander scheme of things, i can’t fault that, but that comment was made with the understanding that it’s concerning because of those among us who have a real romanticisation and fixation with owls. the comment above yours was designed to explain how this is not natural behaviour, and is instructing people not to anthropomorphize them. tumblr is FULL of those kinds of people!!

those of us who point things like this out do so on the basis of deterring people who are not prepared to care for or handle birds of prey from getting their hands on them. luckily, in the US, owls are pretty well protected and there’s all kinds of hoops and tests you have to go through to even get near to an owl outside of a heavily controlled display or show, but other countries like the UK are not as lucky, and anyone can get their hands on anything so long as they can find someone to sell a bird to them. and yes, it is prevalent and there are breeders out there who will just hand out their birds without vetting who takes them. the standard of husbndry in general for birds of prey in the UK is shocking, and at times it very often seems like those who do it well are the outliers. i know this from first hand accounts and countless insatnces shared among us as a community of falconers and keepers, which i would actually love to share just for the general purpose of showing people the positions that some ‘falconers’ put their birds into, but they are unfortunately lost deep in various facebook groups.

the romanticisation of owls is a huge huge problem with concerns for animal welfare, mainly due to cultural influences. harry potter is basically the main culprit here in the context of owls. yes, jk rowling has urged her fans to not do this, but i have seen this epidemic the article discusses first hand.

when mass media presents keeping a highly specialised animal such as an owl in a certain light, without showing the care and time that goes into working with them, you get big, big problems, such as the simply shocking husbandry and handling i’ve had the misfortune to witness. i’ve seen larger eagle owls in small cages, and/or cat carriers. i’ve seen barn owls tethered on the same perches, all shapes and sizes of owls passed around people to pet and harass, owls in close contact with dogs and cats that endager them…all kinds of things which wouldn’t shock someone outside of tose in the know. why? ROMANTICISATION AND LACK OF KNOWLEDGE.

to quote another falconer’s post on here, ‘…If you own an exotic animal, for any reason (be it falconry, whatever), what you post reflects on the species of animal (that you work with)’. that means that you have a role as an educator to not spread anthropormorphised misinformation to the public, such as saying that an owl is ‘cuddly’, in order to maintain good standards of care and respect for the natural world and those birds in captivity.

there is already a strong misconception, among the internet particularly, that owls enjoy human contact, likely stemming from how people see dogs and cats are friendly. they extrapolate and then decide that a predator must be the same. that is how people get hurt. a pet dog or cat might be ‘cuddly’. a wild predator is definitely not. as an educator, your job is to provide information and should there be any  interaction with your animal between the animal and the general public, it needs to be conducted in a way THAT DOES NOT PUT THE PUBLIC AT RISK. why? common sense. if you have a dog that doesn’t do well with being touched due to personality or a turbulent past, you wouldn’t let someone pet it and get bitten or otherwise maimed. presenting this gif to people and then claiming it’s all happy and cuddly not only puts people in danger, but it furthers this romanticisation people have, which furthers people buying owls and not taking care of them because they aren’t what they saw online, rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

so yeah. unless this bird as been imprinted, what this owl is doing isn’t natural behaviour and shouldn’t be presented as anything else but that.

that aside, the point of highlighting these things is not to tell EVERYONE what the problem is. this post has far too much traction and has been crossposted to several other places by now. the point is telling a small selection of people so that the information diffuses out through those few, to reach a wider audience to make larger changes to attitudes over a longer period of time.