It is believed that about 200 Great Gray Owls cling to their lives in the Yosemite National Park and adjacent forests of the Sierra Nevada in California. The next nearest breeding population is here in southern Oregon in the Cascades, about 300 miles north of Yosemite. In California the GGO is already a legally endangered species. The recent horrific forest fire has ripped through 60 square miles of forest. Some of that included former GGO habitat.
The embattled GGO population in central California has been isolated from the rest of its species for millennia. If this population is diminished or destroyed by fire, epidemic or habitat loss, it is not likely to ever return. The nearest GGO populations here in Oregon are sedentary and are not known to wander far, thus there would be little chance of repopulating the
Yosemite region.
It will be some time before it is clear how the owls fared in this fire around Yosemite.
Towheeblog 
Very sad :(. Hopefully the damage wasn’t too bad. Thanks for updating.
By: Rena Xemu on September 25, 2013
at 1:10 pm