Like all sentient beings, barn owls also have a place that they call ‘home’. They will then start a family and stay put in the area, which eventually becomes an owl colony.

But simply putting in place (erecting) a couple of nest boxes for barn owls in urban areas, gardens, cities and towns in the municipality to let them live does not really create a kind of home environment - let alone all that is happening outside their natural habitat.

What farmers do is they will build an owl colony in fruit orchards or palm oil estates. Of course not in the way that the Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) have planted the nest boxes in Subang Jaya.

That is why when the owls were let loose, they just flew away, never to return.

In fact prior to implementing the pilot project to use owls to control or rather reduce the rodent population in Subang Jaya, MPSJ should have done a feasible study to see if it will work outside their natural habitat.

MPSJ should also know that there should be one pair of nest boxes for every 20 acres or less. Or, rather one in every 4 acres - that is one pair of nest boxes in every 8-10 acres. And the pole for the nest boxes should be not less than 8 feet tall.

Our planters and farmers working in palm oil estates here in Malaysia have already put in place adequate numbers of appealing and attractive owl nest boxes and have also brought in the barn owls.

Exactly, the owls adapted to the new environment easily and rather quickly, too, because the palm tree jungle provided a natural habitat and scenario.

And thus their presence have created an effective rodents killing system, especially with each owl catching five to six live rats every day for food.

That means a single owl will catch about 2,000 live rats in a year.

By the way, these ‘jungle’ owls are not really suitable for catching rats in urban areas, cities and towns.

Besides, it is difficult for the owl to fly over residential houses chasing a rat for the kill as there are an abundance of drain holes and burrows for the rats to take cover.

Why breed owls in the MPSJ municipality, then?

Farmers and planters have to use owls to control the population of rodents surviving on their crops as each year their losses are heavy from destruction by rats.

Using snakes not a success

They have to switch to using owls because prior to this, they had released snakes to feed on the rats. Though it did reduce the rat population, the farmers and planters were too fearful and afraid of being bitten by the snakes during harvesting and tree pruning, etc, etc. So they had all the snakes killed and replaced them with barn owls as early as 1969 in an oil palm estate in the southern state of Johor.

Here is a pertinent point contributed by a reader when I told her what I was writing. She straight-away asked me to add her thoughts about how people avoid meeting face to face with an owl as it would bring bad luck to the eyes of the beholder.

And, here it is: She said, “ With these owls ‘roaming’ in the wee hours hooting “Who-O-O” or “Whee-Tuh” it makes the area sound rather eerie and scary to residents. Furthermore, some quarters believe that these birds have seen a ‘ghost’ in its path. The Malays seemingly called it ‘burung hantu’.

So, whether you (residents) can sleep peacefully like ordinary days will therefore depend on how soon you adapt to these noisy disturbances or how long these birds are there hooting “Who-O-O” or “Hiss-S-S-S” or rattle like rattlesnakes.

Surely you have heard some quarters say that whoever sees an owl, generally it is a bad omen, or rather it will bring forth bad luck to anyone who sees it.

Hopefully with these birds being brought in to Subang Jaya using taxpayers’ money by MPSJ to catch the rats, it is hoped that instead it (the plan to eliminate the rat population) would bring good luck to each and everyone who resides in the township and also prosperity and success to entrepreneurs and the business community in the township.

This is addressed to the president of MPSJ, please do not waste taxpayers’ money and time breeding barn owls, it is not your cup of tea.

Surely, there are other means or alternatives to tackle the problem and to stop the rat menace in the township once and for all, if you and your team do more thorough research.

In the meantime do not waste public money in this pilot project which apparently is not working. Use the money to resurface roads riddled with potholes and repair playground that are in dilapidated conditions.

LAU BING is a community activist and writer in Subang Jaya.