The eagle owl (Bubo bubo)

The eagle owl belongs to the Strigiforms, commonly known as nocturnal birds of prey. It is the biggest of his species with his wingspan that goes from 1,50 m to 2 m. For the ancient Greeks the owl represented a symbol of wisdom and knowledge. During the Middle Ages, instead, there was an inversion of perception, and the owls and all the nocturnal birds of prey began to be associated with witchcraft. Indeed, the word “Strigiforms” and the Italian word for “witch” (strega) have the same root (strix, strigis = meaning “barn owl”). They are the only birds with frontal eyes and they are able to rotate the head 270º. They live near abandoned constructions and even in cemeteries.  All of this has contributed to increase their fame, which is anything but positive. Yet, they play an important role for the man, in fact they hold under control the rodent population. In particular, the eagle owl also preys on rabbits and hares, although its feeding is based above all on rats, dormice and other middle-sized rodents. The causes of its extinction in Sicily (which occurred in the 1970s) are various. Being a predator at the apex of the food chain has made it a victim of the biomagnification process, that is the increase in the concentration of pollutants as it fed on the small preys that came into contact with DDT, massively used since the period after the Second World War. To this we can add the hunters, who killed it because it preyed on animals of interest for hunting, or to embalm him as a trophy; last but not least, the loss of habitat, due to the deforestation, especially of tall trees, completes the description of the causes of extinction of the eagle owl in Sicily.