Wildwatch Burrowing Owl

Dr. Melissa Merrick

Melissa is an Associate Director of Recovery Ecology for the Southwest Conservation Hub at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. She gets to oversee the fantastic burrowing owl team and help coordinate research activities in southern California. Together with the burrowing owl team, the Wildlife Alliance, and many essential partners, Melissa works to ensure that breeding populations of burrowing owls persist and thrive in the region.

Colleen Wisinski

Colleen is the Conservation Program Manager of the Burrowing Owl Recovery Program at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. She has been working with the burrowing owls of San Diego since 2011. She is responsible for overseeing the field team, managing and analyzing the data, and working with colleagues to make recommendations about management of the species to local land and wildlife managers. Using direct observations, camera traps, GPS transmitters, and color banding, she and the team are learning about survival, reproduction, translocation, and movement of the owls in the region.

Susanne Marczak

Susanne is the Senior Research Coordinator of the Burrowing Owl Recovery Program at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Her primary focus is on the monitoring and research of the remaining burrowing owl breeding population in San Diego County. Every week she is out in the field on the  look-out for burrowing owls and setting up camera traps at nesting  burrows to monitor the outcomes of  breeding  attempts.  She also  traps adult and juvenile owls to band them and collect morphometric and genetic data important to understanding the health and status of the overall population.

Michael Stevens

Michael is a Research Associate II of the Burrowing Owl Recovery Program at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. He aids in the research of burrowing owls by collecting field data with direct observations and camera traps, constructing artificial burrows and aviaries for translocations, and helping with owl trapping and banding.

Holly Hermann-Sorensen

Holly is a Research Associate II of the Burrowing Owl Recovery Program at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. She aids in the research of burrowing owls by collecting field data with direct observations and camera traps, constructing artificial burrows and aviaries for translocations, and helping with owl capture and banding.

Daniel Banyai-Becker

Daniel is a Research Associate of the Burrowing Owl Recovery Program at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. He aids in the research of burrowing owls by collecting field data with direct observations and camera traps, constructing artificial burrows and aviaries for translocations, and helping with owl capture and banding.

##Veronica Pedraza##
Veronica is a Research Assistant of the Burrowing Owl Recovery Program at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. She aids in the research of burrowing owls by collecting field data with direct observations and camera traps, constructing artificial burrows and aviaries for translocations, and helping with owl capture and banding.