Powerful Boobook

Prior to the mid 1980s the abundance, ecology and behaviour of this species was poorly understood. With the use of call playback (the use of calls to initiate animal responses) their distribution increased signficantly. Populations of Powerful Owl have been studied in relation to logging and geology in southern and northern New South Wales (Kavanagh et al 1995, Kavanagh and Bamkin 1996). The work of Kavanagh et al (1995) and Kavanagh and Kavanagh and Bamkin (1996) suggest that populations of Powerful Owl have a relatively homogeneous distribution across different soil types and that they are not disadvantaged by current selective logging operations at the landscape scale.

The species is also known to occur in urban bushland areas such as around Melbourne and Sydney with populations around Melbourne being studied for the past decade by researchers from the University of Melbourne (eg Cooke et al 2002).

The Powerful Owl is considered to be a rare species and is classifed as vulnerable under the New South Wales Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995.

References
Cooke, R, Wallis, R and Webster, A (2002) 'Urbanisation and the ecology Powerful Owls (Ninox strenua) in outer Melbourne, Victoria' in Ecology and Conservation of Owls (ed Newton et al), Melbourne, CSIRO Publishing, pp. 100-106.
Kavanagh, R, Debus, S, Tweedie, T and Webster, R (1995) Distribution of Nocturnal Forest Birds and Mammals in North-eastern New South Wales: Relationships with Environmental Variables and Management History, Wildlife Research 22, 359-377.

Kavanagh, R and Bambkin, K (1996) Distribution of nocturnal forest birds and mammals in relation to the logging mosaic in south-eastern New South Wales, Australia, Biological Conservation 71, 41-53

The Powerful Owl is found throughout the eastern forests and woodlands of Eastern Australia from southern Victoria to southeast Queensland.