These Adorable Owls Will Not Kill You With Plague

(gentle instrumental music)

(owl hissing)

Well, hello there, burrowing owl.

Aren't you cute?

(owl hissing)

Yes, yes, you are,

what with your fluffy down

and your round face,

and wait, what?

You have fleas?

A lot of fleas?

Okay, yeah, yeah, so you feed on rodents,

and then you take over their burrows.

Yes, yes, I've heard that ground squirrels

do have a lot of fleas.

Wait, seriously?

The fleas carry the plague?

Like, wiped out millions of humans, Black Death,

that plague?

Uh huh, so what on earth are those field biologists doing

holding you and your plague-ridden fleas?

Oh, they're studying why you don't get the plague.

(owl hissing)

Well, that's sort of a relief.

So why don't you get the plague?

Ah, no one knows for sure,

but the scientists at Boise State in Idaho,

they're the people holding you,

they did some research

and found that while the fleas feed on you,

ouch, you don't seem to get infected,

and that may actually be taking the plague fleas

out of circulation

because they hang out on you

and aren't jumping onto other species,

like humans.

(owl screeching)

Right, right, or the ground squirrels

that periodically die off in massive plagues

that could result in human infection.

Well, that's pretty neat,

especially given that you're kind of endangered,

so more of you might be a good thing to curb the plague.

Great.