Popular owls.

Cathrine Glosli

Katrine Eldegard and Geir A. Sonerud have been doing research on Tengmalm's owl for several years. Their results have just been published, and the media attention has been large.

Katrine og Geir have spent five years in Hedmark county doing research on Tengmalm's owls. The resultats have been very interesting: 70 % of the females left their partner and offspring, whereupon the males were forced to support the offspring alone. The better the food supply, the larger the chances were of female desertion.

Their article was published online by the Proceedings of the Royal Society B on February the 25th, but the results have already caused a stir abroad. It has been picked up by German and Swiss media, and the German magazines Der Spiegel, Focus, Stern and Wissenschaft have released articles even before the scientific results were public. Der Spiegel, Focus, Stern and Wissenschaft are all leading weekly German magazines, with a total number of several million copies.

Norwegian media has also published features after publication.

National features:
Story on NRK P2 (Norwegian radio): Verdt å vite
Story on Forskning.no: Uglemor stikker fra ungene
Story in Aftenposten: Stikker av fra mann og barn

International features:
Story on videnskab.dk: Uglemor stikker af fra ungerne
Story in vögel: Käuzinnen auf Kopulationskurs
Story on n-tv.de: Zweite Familie gründen - Eulenweibchen hauen ab
Story, DRS: Von frechen Mädchen
Story in Der Spiegel: Wenn das Futter stimmt, machen Weibchen die Fliege
Story in Focus: Mehr Nachwuchs durch Untreue
Story in Wissenschaft: Flatterhafte Flittchen
Story in Stern: Bigamie beim Federvieh

Read more about the results here.

Read the entire article ’Female offspring desertion and male-only care increase with natural and experimental increase in food abundance’

Updated: 17.04.09
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