[ad_1]
A pair of owls appear to be terrorising college students and school on the College of Richmond in Virginia.
Chemistry professor Leo Leopold informed The Collegian, the college’s pupil newspaper, that “it felt like a 10-pound pinecone hit me behind the top” when he was attacked by one of many animals.
The professor mentioned he had no thought an owl was close by; it was fully silent.
“I touched the again of my head and located blood,” he continued, describing an encounter that occurred in August. “That was once I seemed up and noticed two owls.”
The college’s roughly 4,000 college students had been again on campus beginning 22 August, and have reported quite a few alarming encounters with owls, typically late at evening.
On 30 August, The Collegian experiences, owls attacked two college students, making off with a baseball cap. A pupil later discovered the hat marked with claw holes.
One other pupil was attacked and suffered cuts to the again of the top.
Richmond biology professor Peter Smallwood informed the scholar paper he suspects the encounters are with a barred owl, a species frequent to the Southwestern US, and the second-largest owl present in Virginia.
As a result of the encounters are occurring exterior the owl’s regular spring nesting season, he theorises that they could have been raised in captivity and escaped, explaining their erratic behaviour.
“I don’t suppose it’s attempting to assault folks,” he mentioned. “I feel it’s simply used to folks feeding it and it’s most likely actually hungry.”
Suburban environments, with their proliferation of timber and gardens, and the tasty vermin who dwell in them, typically make appropriate habitats for owls, and the occasional aggressive change with human neighbours isn’t unparalleled.
In November 2021, CBS46 Atlanta reported a minimum of 15 folks within the metro space had been attacked by owls.
A house owner named Stephanie described her “terrifying” encounter to the station.
“It sunk its talons into my shoulders after which my head,” she mentioned. “It form of got here as much as me and kinda of smashed into me.”
In 2012, a jogger informed The Washington Submit about his personal set of barred owl assaults in Bethesda, Maryland. Rob Bierregaard of the College of North Carolina at Charlotte informed the paper he suspected the culprits had been teen owls having amusing.
“Barred owls are so used to people that they’ve just about misplaced all concern of them. However I can’t stretch that to clarify why an owl would pop a jogger on the again of the top,” he informed The Submit. “Utilizing Sherlock’s technique that after you’ve eradicated the unattainable, no matter stays, nevertheless inconceivable, should be true, the one factor I can give you is these are playful younger.”
[ad_2]
Source link
