Wildbuzz: Eating their first born

Ever since their rescue as chicks from the local area and development into adulthood in captivity, the Chhatbir Zoo management had been hoping the pair of Indian Eagle owls would breed successfully. The pair did produce a solitary chick, but one fine day, the parents were observed eating their first born. The management declared the episode a case of “cannibalism” and drew up plans to take the next batch of chicks away from the “murderous” pair and hand-rear the offspring.

Since none of the zookeepers had actually seen the chick being killed by the parents, were they actually guilty? There was one fact to go by — the owls were being fed dressed meat and their diet was devoid of furred/feathered prey so essential for owls to produce and expel pellets, which are undigested parts of the prey’s hair, fur and bones. I sought the counsel of the award-winning global expert on captive raptors, Jemima Parry-Jones, MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire), the intrepid British lady who tours this region periodically as a technical consultant to South Asia’s critically-endangered vulture breeding projects.

“The most likely scenario is that the Chhatbir chick died due to a deficient diet and the parents ate it. Chances of cannibalism (parents killing the chick) are lesser and would occur if they were very stressed/traumatised in the zoo with lots of disturbance and visitors gaping at them. When owls breed, they need to be kept in seclusion,” Parry-Jones told this writer.

She also underlined the importance of feeding owls whole meats rather than chopped up, dressed pieces of mutton/chicken.

“If owls are fed only dressed meats, then the diet lacks roughage and the guts get compacted. That leads to various physiological problems for owls. Calcium deficiency is to be guarded against when keeping owls in captivity,” Dr Vibhu Prakash, deputy director, Bombay Natural History Society at Pinjore, and India’s pioneering vulture-breeding scientist, told this writer.

Subsequent to the chick’s death, Chhatbir’s management has wisely introduced whole meats (poultry chicks and rodents) into the diet. We hope the next chicks are brought up by their food-happy, stress-free and well-disposed parents!

A Beethovian assertion

The call at dusk of the male Indian Eagle owl was a deep, periodic, resonant ‘bu-boo’. The owl’s typical vocalisation was an emphatic assertion like a note from a Beethoven symphony. It was martial in its tone and magnificent in its monopoly over nature as it marched across the placid, twilight waters of a Shivalik check dam behind Chandigarh. The owl was perched on a tree overlooking water and vocalising to a female in hiding, the powerful calls evocative of a bull’s distant bellows to rattle rivals and summon bovine females to his sturdy virility.

An Indian eagle owl puts on an intimidating display at Chhatbir Zoo. (SHIVJOT SINGH BHULLAR)

This large owl species inhabits cliffs and nallahs, and can be observed perched cryptically among shrubs, trees or a cleft. On certain occasions, and when the owl is on the ground, it resorts to a mesmerising display of intimidation when approached by a predator or humans. The display is a survival artifice taken recourse to in the wilderness as well as in captivity. The owl stares unblinkingly at the threat and ruffles the plumage to make the owl appear larger than normal, and, as an aside, lending semblance to a weird peacock display!

The owl hisses with an open bill at the threat and indulges in bill clicking. The latter is a sound produced by the lower mandible being extended over the hook of the upper mandible, pressed hard, and withdrawn at a speed to produce an audible clap!

(The writer can be contacted at vjswild1@gmail.com)

First Published: Sep 23, 2018 09:23 IST