A Jew, an Arab and an Owl Walk Into a Barn

Haaretz ^ | 8/23/11 | Zafrir Rinat

[nickcarraway]

A popular superstition holding that owls are bad luck caused Arab farmers to refuse for quite some time to put up nesting boxes for the birds, even though they are widely used by Jewish farmers as a form of biological pest control.

But this attitude has begun to change of late, thanks to the efforts of an ornithologist from the Lower Galilee village of Iksal.

Samah Darawshe, of the Israel Ornithology Center, has managed to persuade Arab farmers in the Lower Galilee to put up dozens of nesting boxes over the last year, and dozens more are slated to go up soon. The results of the effort will be presented in two weeks at a Tel Aviv conference on regional economic cooperation sponsored by the Regional Development Ministry, which put up the money for the nesting boxes.

To date, Jewish farmers have put up some 2,700 nesting boxes, as owls eat a large number of agricultural pests. As such, they constitute an alternative to pesticides. The ornithology center, run by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, also managed to persuade Jordanian farmers to put up nesting boxes.

To convince Israeli Arab farmers to overcome their fears, Darawshe launched a major informational campaign. "We held special seminars for people in the villages," he related.

"I spoke with students at the schools, and also with imams. I even did a search of religious sources and found that the Prophet Mohammed rejected superstitions against animals, including owls. And there were imams who agreed to speak about the importance of using owls in their Friday sermons."

One of the first farmers to agree to try out the owls was Salah Omari of Sandala. Two years ago, he put up two nest boxes, one of which produced "the first owl nest in

[Jonty30]

If Islam is supposedly the truth from God, you’d think there’d be a lot less superstition in that part of the world.

[SunkenCiv]

“A popular superstition holding that owls are bad luck caused Arab farmers...”

s/b

“An Arab superstition [fill in the blank] caused Arab farmers...”

Works for lots of things. ;’)

Thanks nickcarraway.

[dalereed]

to hell with the owls, I want pesticides used on my food!!!!

[KingLudd]

This follows successful campaigns on making fire and the wheel. Animals.

[ixtl]

But owls lie... just ask the Navajo.

[sbMKE]

Illiterate devotees to a moon rock religion make day-to-day decisions based on superstition. Who’d have thought?

[rfreedom4u]

Maybe if they build a Hooters more owls will show up!

[visualops]

that link isn’t working for some reason
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/a-jew-an-arab-and-an-owl-walk-into-a-barn-1.380129

[Future Snake Eater]

And there were imams who agreed to speak about the importance of using owls in their Friday sermons.

"Well, I'll have to trim a few minutes between my "Destroy-Israel-and-kill-all-Jews" rant and my "death to America" rant. I guess I could tack it onto the end of my public service announcement reminding folks about the proper use of their left hand..."

[dervish]

No bats?

[SunkenCiv]

;’)