The Common Barn Owl A New Mid-East Peace Symbol

The common barn owl may be a harbinger of peace if other countries can learn form the work and cooperation that has been demonstrated by the farmers of Jordan and Israel. The path is open but many barriers are in the way.

The common barn owl and the farmers in Israel and Jordan may be signaling the path to peace, let’s work together, learn from each other and solve our common problems. Rats in the Sheik Hussein Village in Jordan have been plaguing farmers for many years and each year the farmers watch as the rats devoured their date crop. Finally, a local farmer, Ibrahim Alayyan, who had no luck, even with pesticide, in controlling his rat problem, took a lesson from the farmers living across the Jordan River in Israel. The Israeli farmers were using the common barn owl to control the rat problem. A cooperative effort has been formed that involved both Jordanian and Israeli farmers. The cooperative project was made possible by the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. The farmers are hoping the word will spread to Lebanon, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries. However, politics and peace are not the main reason the farmers undertook this project. Their main concern is environmental. In the 1970s, hundreds of birds in northern Israel were killed by chemicals. Yossi Leshem, an Israeli ornithologist and director of the International Center for the Study of Bird Migration, persuaded the kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, which is south of the Sea of Galilee, to use owls. Owls can eat ten rats per day, each. The farmers’ job was to build boxes that the owls could call home. Within a few years the rats were under control and today there are 60 nesting boxes on the grounds of the kibbutz. The technique has been so successful that is has spread along the Jordan River. In time the owl population grew and the young owls began to spread out. Some flew across the River into Jordan where pesticide use was common. The pesticides seeped into the water table and the owls began to die because they ate poisoned rats. The peace treaty made it possible for the neighbours, who were separated by the river, to get together and talk shop. Iin 2002, Aviel and fellow Israeli farmers organized a regional conference on barn owls to explain their advantages to colleagues across the Jordan River. The initial response from the Arabs was less than encouraging. The Arabs did not like barn owls and some considered them to be bad luck, much like black cats. The organizers received word that no farmers from Jordan would attend an owl conference, so they did what any good organizer does; they changed the theme of the conference to focus on organic farming. The Jordanians attended. An owl demonstration was given and shortly after that the Jordanian farmers were asking how they could attract owls to their fields. The Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, Ohio provides funding and the kibbutz gave the Jordanians advice and building materials. Since then more than three dozen nesting boxes have since been put up in Jordan, according to the conference organizers. Ibrahim Alayyan was a participant at that conference and agreed to build a nesting box. The success of that first box has meant that he and his family are able to harvest their dates and have lost none to rats since then. The barn owl project has attracted the attention and support of both political and former military leaders such Mansour Abu Rashed, the former head of Jordanian intelligence. The farmers and their supporters know that the owls will not bring peace to the Middle East but as Rashed has said: the goal is

"to bring people together, to let them talk and build confidence."

There are still obstacles. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the tense atmosphere caused the Israeli farmers to delay the first delivery of building materials to the Jordanian farmers. There is frustration among some of the Israeli organizers with the pace of progress in Jordan and there have been acts of vandalism on a few of the Jordanian farms. Was the vandalism caused by owl-phobia or by Israel's involvement? The answer is unknown. Still, the project worked, and the Jordanian farmers, who embraced it, are pleased. Arabs and Israelis have cooperated on environmental projects such as water quality and waste removal. Both Jewish and Arab students can receive training in how to solve ecological problems at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. Friends of the Earth-Middle East is a not-for-profit organization that includes Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian environmentalists. The organization leads joint efforts to clean up the Jordan River and promote eco-tourism packages on both sides of the border.