Encore: Owl pursuits

This episode was originally published on March 10, 2023.

In 2022, freshmen at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill got a new neighbor: an owl. What wasn't clear was whether the owl was trying to befriend them, or catch them.

Sometimes the owl seemed to be chasing students. Other times, it seemed to come in peace. A popular campus Instagram account reported that a woman had actually raised the owl herself. After she was spotted feeding it, the owl sightings stopped, much to the disappointment of students who'd come to consider it as a sort of mascot. Where had the owl come from, and where did it go?

Endless Thread host Ben Brock Johnson and producer Grace Tatter talk about how the owl gained online campus fame, and get a surprise update from the person who knows the owl best.

Show notes

"Animal Instincts" (Criminal)
"The Real Killer in The Staircase Might Be … an Owl?" (Vulture)
"Column: Hinton hears a hoot — the Class of 2026 vs. the HoJo Owl" (The Daily Tar Heel)
Instagram post of owl chasing student Kaleigh Wilhite (UNC Chicks)
Instagram post of owl confrontation at a basketball court (UNC Chicks)
Instagram post with other campus owl sightings (UNC Chicks)
Instagram post of Barb with the owl (UNC Quirks)
Reddit post on r/wellthatsucks about an owl attack
"An owl twice attacked a Washington woman. A biologist says it's becoming more common" (NPR)

This content was originally created for audio. An auto-generated transcript is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Heads up that some elements (i.e. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to translate to text.

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