From Ojai Raptor Center
Many of you have asked about the sounds Juniper makes. These are not typical adult Great Horned Owl vocalizations.
Juniper is malimprinted, which means she did not grow up with her own species and instead imprinted on humans. She also fell from the nest as a very young nestling and sustained head trauma that has left her with a lasting brain injury. The sounds she makes are baby Great Horned Owl vocalizations, the kind young owlets use with their parents when they are hungry or being fed.
In rehabilitation, we work really hard to prevent imprinting and habituation. When we hear these sounds from a young owl in care, it can be a sign of imprinting or habituation to humans. Habituation can sometimes be reversed, but imprinting is permanent.
At the end of this video, you will hear a more typical adult Great Horned Owl vocalization for comparison.
Awesome to wake up and see 3 of you posted! It always makes me happy to see what you all contribute.
The same person (bot?) that’s been downvoting almost all my posts hit you all as well, so at least I know it’s not just me. 😄
There are some users that can see who downvotes. If it’s indeed a bot or troll that is targeting you/this group it should be enough to validate a ban.
I use lemvotes to prove to myself it’s usually just people clicking by accident, but this has been going on for like maybe 2 weeks now. They’re not doing anything, and it’s an account with no comments or posts, so it’s just kinda weird to me. If it’s a person, why not just block the community if you don’t like owl. If it’s a bot, for what purpose?
Humans are weird. Can be a troll, can be a person testing a bot or how communities react to this or if they have safeguards to detect and ban bots.
