Endangered
Sokoke Scops Owl
Otus ireneae
Sokoke Scops Owl is a bird in the family Strigidae (order Strigiformes) — Otus ireneae, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
Sokoke scops owl is a fairly plain scops owl with small spotted markings on the underside. The Sokoke scops owl, also Morden's scops owl or Morden's owlet, is a highly localized species of scops owl found in lowland forests of Kenya and Tanzania. The Sokoke scops owl can grow to 6+1⁄2 in (17 cm), and can weigh up to 2 oz (57 g), and is the smallest of the scops owls.
Range and habitat
Sokoke scops owl have a highly restricted range in coastal Kenya and north-eastern Tanzania. It was first discovered in 1965 in the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve in coastal Kenya. Two other isolated populations have been subsequently discovered in the Dakatcha woodlands in Kenya and in the Manga and Kwamgumi forest reserves in the lowlands of the East Usambara mountains, Tanzania.
Increasing populations of African elephants in the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve may also affect their populations through habitat degradation. Call surveys conducted in 2005 and 2008 in the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest Reserve place the population size of the reserve at 800 pairs.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Like other Otus owls, they are strictly nocturnal, making their biology difficult to study. Pellet samples show that they feed almost exclusively on medium-sized insects across a wide range of orders, with the predominant prey type likely dependent on availability at the time.
In crisis
The IUCN places the Sokoke scops owl as globally Endangered on its Red List. Its dependence on undisturbed forest means that it is threatened by human disturbance such as logging, fires and encroachment. The isolation of suitable forest patches that are surrounded by human-modified habitats means that they risk extinction.
Habitat restoration and translocation to other suitable habitat patches have been suggested as potential conservation interventions that may help prevent their extinction. Densities in 1997 in the East Usambaras ranged from less than 1.5 pairs/km2 to 3 or 4 pairs/km2, and the population is estimated to be markedly smaller than the Arabuko-Sokoke population.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Sokoke Scops Owl is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Sokoke Scops Owl, Wikidata item Q1270124. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
