The Western Burrowing Owl (Athene cuniculariahypugaea) is a grassland specialist distributedthroughout w. North America, primarily in openareas with short vegetation and bare ground indesert, grassland, and shrub-steppe environments.Burrowing Owls are dependent on the presence of fossorial mammals (primarily prairie dogs andground squirrels), whose burrows are used fornesting and roosting. Burrowing Owls are protectedby the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in the UnitedStates and Mexico. They are listed as Endangered inCanada and Threatened in Mexico. They areconsidered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service(USFWS) to be a Bird of Conservation Concern atthe national level, in three USFWS regions, and innine Bird Conservation Regions . At the state level, Burrowing Owls are listed as Endangered inMinnesota, Threatened in Colorado, and as a Speciesof Concern in California, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyomin