“Up to now we have only been able to observe owls with a common night viewer”, explain Florian Gamper and Willy Campei, who jointly manage the Avifauna Recovery Center of Castel Tirolo. "The new ZEISS thermal imager will therefore be able to bring a new level of quality to our research." Dr. Gerold Dobler (Carl Zeiss AG), as well as Achille Berti and Andy De Santis (Bignami SpA) recently delivered the new ZEISS DTI 3/35 thermal viewer to the two ornithology experts, thus receiving an on-site update on the status of ongoing research and witnessing one of the daily flight shows of the various birds of prey present at the Avifauna Center. More than 30 years ago, the owl in South Tyrol was considered to be at high risk of extinction. "Around the year 2000, the populations stabilized," says Dr. Florian Gamper. “But recently we have seen that the number of owls has gone down again.
The number of couples with offspring is still quite stable, but fewer and fewer children are able to grow - this means that the generational change does not happen. " One of the now infamous reasons are the high voltage cables. Another check to be made is that linked to the growing number of anti-hail nets in agricultural crops, which disturb the flight of large nocturnal birds. Equipped with the ZEISS thermal viewer, researchers will be able to observe in detail the owls, which are very active in the night hours, which record any anomalies to be reported to the competent bodies. In addition to the increase in ornithological observations, further awareness-raising activities on the subject are also planned.