More than 5,000 people have signed a Change.org petition to help protect a sanctuary for burrowing owls that is under threat.
Since the owls nest in underground burrows instead of trees, urbanization has prompted special protections nationwide.
In South Florida, the native imperiled species found refuge at Florida Atlantic University, a growing campus in Boca Raton.
“The burrowing owls sitting on their perches, hopping around their burrows, the gopher tortoises walking around eating grass, and it’s a breath of fresh air to be able to see that in such a developed area,” Theo Quenee, a photographer and animal advocate, said about the FAU Conservation Area.
Quenee, who started the Change.org petition earlier this month, is concerned about the vulnerable burrowing owls in the area that the Audubon Society, a nonprofit environmental organization, had deemed to be a sanctuary in 1971.
“They’re tiny, they’re cute. They live in an area that used to be full of grass fields and habitat,” Quenee said. “For them, that’s now been diminished vastly to build the school out.”
The petition included a map showing the 5-year and 10-year objectives of a proposed plan. FAU applied for a special permit from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission for a move, and the state granted it.
“These are some of the burrowing owls. Their burrows will have to be moved as part of the proposed construction,” Quenee said.
Juliana Soto, an activist at FAU who advocates for the owls, said it breaks her heart to see how the permit has allowed workers to fill the owls’ burrows to prevent renesting.
“They are supposed to protect the wildlife here in Florida and they’re not doing that, they’re putting development and profit over nature, that’s not right,” Soto said. “It takes a student just to speak up really loud and vocal to have eyes on the situation.”
A spokesperson for FAU reported there was evidence of 64 potentially occupied burrows on campus and 31 sightings during a campus-wide protected species assessment, but did not answer questions about how many were at risk in the construction corridor.
Daniel John Mlodozeniec is the education director of the Tropical Audubon Society, a nonprofit organization based in Miami-Dade County. He finds irony in that FAU’s mascot is a burrowing owl.
His message to the FAU developers: “You could serve as the standard of conservation amongst the different universities around here in South Florida, that would be my advice, that could be your legacy, or the legacy could be burying your own mascot.”
Soto said that she needs the majority of FAU’s 30,000 students’ support to help stop the construction. For more information about the advocates’ “#GIVEAHOOT’ campaign, visit this page or scan the QR code below.
Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
