In the US, there is separate licensing for rescues and for places that display animals. While most aren’t technically open to the public, they will have events either at the facilities or surrounding areas where they will bring out animals for educational purposes. The small park by my work is not a rehab, but they do have permits to display animals that are unreleasable, and they have farm animals, but also some owls, hawks, wolves, and a bobcat among other things. The Raptor Center is about an hour from me, and they have all our local birds of prey. I’m not sure if any in the display area are releasable, as a lot of them have been there for a few of my visits, but some enclosures seem to have someone different each time. Also one of the best educational events I’ve seen was put on by a place that I don’t think is open to the public at all, but they had a great presentation with a variety of owls, and we got to handle owl bones and feathers. All the reading I get to do tells me a lot, but being able to see behaviors in action or to feel the feathers and bones and see the scale of the anatomy really helps it all click in my head. Plus they are so cute to see and hear in person! So while they aren’t all open, many present opportunities to have some interactive experience.

One thing that I know is different between Europe and America is that flight displays are not allowed here, but Suffolk Owl Sanctuary in England advertises them, and the one Eagle Owl from the one German park certainly looks like it does from the photos as well.

While being able to see them isn’t a requirement for me to want to share things or encourage people to support them, if an opportunity exists to see something in person, I like to highlight it.

I’ve heard of a few people that have tried owl hunting, and they sound like very hard animals to motivate. We do have some raptor people at the beaches near me that partrol the seagulls that are where all the takeway food is. I usually see them with large hawks, and last time I did see it take down some gulls, but the one guy did have an Eagle Owl the one day. It was actually my first post here!