Five barn owl chicks rescued

Forest officials hand them over to zoo

Barn owl chicks being rescued from a function hall at MVP Colony in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday.

Five barn owl chicks were rescued from a function hall in MVP Colony by the Forest Department on Tuesday.

The owners complained of strange noises that these owls were making. The chicks were rescued and handed over to the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park.

Deputy Range Officer Durga Prasad and guards Srinivas and Nagaraju took part in the rescue operation. “We have to learn to live with harmless wildlife like owls. We have to give them space to survive,” a senior Forest Department official said.

He told

The Hindu that the harmless owls should not be disturbed from their nests built in urban buildings and called for awareness among the denizens to not deny the chicks the support from their mothers for taking flight after growing of feathers.

Rumour

Earlier, the sighting of two barn owl chicks in a video went viral with many claiming that they were aliens found in a building under construction in the city. However, later General Manager of Orissa Stevedores Limited J.K. Nayak informed the zoo authorities that they found ‘two small birds making strange noises.’ They were not in a position to fly due to time required to for growth of feathers. Later the zoo authorities rescued them from the office building located in the One Town area.