Critters: Walking your Owls.

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From our friends across the drink: In Devon, the town of Plympton… Russell Burt has “walked” his owls through town:
Every day for the past nine years, bird-lover Russell Burt has been taking his pet owls out for a walk. He’s a popular attraction in the picturesque Devon town of Plympton.
Russell and his collection of owls tour care homes, village fetes and agricultural shows, raising money for the Woodside Animal Welfare Trust.
There’s seven birds in total – Ben, a Bengal eagle owl; Spot, a spotted eagle owl; Mika, a tawny owl; Scoppy, an African Scops; and three barn owls, called Misty, Chas and Scuff.

Most recently, Russ and his Tame Owls entertained guests at a charity garden party in aid of Help For Heroes, hosted by Dawn French’s great aunt Babs Cole and featuring the celebrated organist Len Jackman. Entry was £2.50, including a cream tea.
But now Russell, 74, has fallen foul of animal rights fanaticism and, you guessed, elf’n’safety.
Someone described as ‘a member of the public’ reported him to the police for animal cruelty, complaining that owls are nocturnal creatures and should be sleeping during the day, not parading on the streets of Plympton.
End of an era: Animal-lover Russell Burt, 74, has spent the last ten years regularly ‘walking’ his various owls around his home town of Plympton, Devon
End of an era: Animal-lover Russell has spent the last ten years regularly ‘walking’ his various owls around his home town of Plympton, Devon.
My guess is that this ‘member of the public’ is a card-carrying, lentil-chomping, foxy-woxy sentimentalist – probably a madwoman with a house full of smelly cats and a subscription to PETA.
Instead of telling this interfering busybody to take a running jump, the police approached Russell and informed him they would be passing the complaint on to the council.
Shortly afterwards, he was visited by a dog warden (presumably, they don’ t have a dedicated owl warden) and another official who arrived in two separate vans.
They said he was banned from taking his owls out on the streets.
Russell explained: ‘They told me that it was a danger to the public on a public highway and dangerous to the cars. They asked if I was insured, which I am.
‘I’ve just got to take it, I suppose. You feel upset and angry. The owls love going out and about. I can’t see how it’s causing a danger to the public.’
A council spokeswoman defended their action, saying: ‘We spoke to Mr Burt about travelling along busy roads with his pets as, in the wild, owls live a nocturnal lifestyle and we are concerned about welfare issues around exposing them to loud and hectic environments.
‘There are also safety issues for the public around a large spooked bird of prey running amok on a highway.’
Oh, I see. There’s always ‘safety issues’ around something these days. And what would they be, then? In nine years, there has been no record of any of Russell’s owls attacking anyone or causing a major traffic accident.
Far from being guilty of cruelty, Russell is an active animal welfare volunteer and fund-raiser.

Read more at The Mail online.

About Post Author

Carol Bell

Carol is a graduate of the University of Alabama. Her passion is journalism and it shows. Carol is our unpaid, but very efficient, administrative secretary.
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13 years ago

I bet it was some jealous twit who just wished he had one.

13 years ago

Bureaucrats lead by the rules only, leaders use the rules as guidelines for their wisdom. You would think after 9 years of no problems that they would give some leeway. Owls probably have more smarts than those dimwits.

13 years ago

Owls are one the most mystical creatures on the planet and I have yet to see one running amok on the public highway. If they did they wouldn’t be mystical.

Jess
13 years ago

Man these people torque my tits to the nth degree. The birds didn’t seem to mind all the attention, and I’ll bet old man was feeding them really nice owly meals since they were his fethered fur babies.

13 years ago

Welcome to England 2010.

What a lot of sad stupid bastards we have running the show eh?

13 years ago

If you have seen the size of the regular ravens that congregate in towns all across England, you have to wonder over them picking on Merlin, here, with his lovely owl companions. It gets up my ass a mile to see this kind of “community conscious” just walking all over folks.

13 years ago

WTF is wrong with people who can’t MTOB?

My first thought at this story was SQUEE! OMG teh CUTE! Owls are like cats and chickens morphed together with a hawk. Could it get any more adorable? I think not!

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