West Valley Outdoor Learning Center asking for help finding escaped owl

The West Valley Outdoor Learning Center is missing its resident great horned owl, Marcus, and is asking for help looking for him.

Marcus, who is a little over a year old, is one of seven birds of prey housed at the facility for educational purposes. The outdoor learning center does not take in birds but works with local wildlife agencies to adopt raptors that have been injured and, after rehabilitation, are deemed “unreleaseable.”

“Marcus was actually discovered as a baby and they tried to renest him a couple times, the rehabilitators, and because he never learned to hunt he’s unable to live in the wild. And that’s why he was here with us,” said Jami Otsby-Marsh, the center’s director.

The owl escaped from caretakers Saturday and went missing around Pasadena Park Elementary near Argonne Road and Upriver Drive.

“We were just handling him for a typical show like we do and he just got loose,” Otsby-Marsh said.

The West Valley School District’s learning center, which provides hands-on educational wildlife programs to about 3,500 students in the Spokane area, fears Marcus may come to harm.

“We’re worried that he might not be able to hunt, and if you’re a bird of prey that can’t hunt, you can’t eat,” Otsby-Marsh said.

The bird is fully flighted but is imprinted to humans. In falconry, that essentially means he doesn’t see himself as an owl.

“He doesn’t see humans necessarily the same as most wild birds do,” Otsby-Marsh said. “He may not be super fearful of them.”

Marcus is wearing jesses, leather bands on his feet that act as the bird version of a leash. He can also be identified by his great horned owl call.

“We think Marcus will be pretty loud,” Otsby-Marsh said. “Usually great horned owls are kind of quiet unless it’s breeding season… but Marcus, because he doesn’t know that he’s a great horned owl necessarily, he is a lot more vocal.”

Great horned owls can be characterized by their yellow eyes, their ability to blend in with pine trees and their “distinctive ear tufts that look like feathers on top of their head,” she said.

Otsby-Marsh said if residents find Marcus, they should not approach the bird and should contact the center. West Valley Outdoor Learning Center’s number is (509) 340-1028, and Otsby-Marsh can be reached by email at jami@wvsd.org.

Still, the center does not expect Marcus to have gone far. Great horned owls are typically territorial animals.

“If I could just reiterate that we are looking local,” Otsby-Marsh said. “We are getting a lot of calls from a large area, which sometimes is kind of hard for us because we can’t go on every call. If you’re in the Millwood area and you see a great horned owl, or you notice the jesses or a lot of vocalizations, that would be a reason to reach out to us.”