Ever had a macchiato with a side of Barn Owl?
, spiritual successors to the popular cat caf茅, have taken Japan by storm. They might serve a good cup of joe, but the main attraction is the live owl aviary to go with it. Customers are allowed to pet the tethered owls, ranging from tiny Scops Owls to huge Great Horned Owls, like . But the birds, despite their meme-friendly giant eyes, aren鈥檛 domesticated animals. Is it ethical to stroke one with your latt茅?
A big fat no, says Kent Knowles of the Raptor Conservancy of Virginia. In fact, he was horrified that anyone would try to treat an owl like their beloved Spot or Fluffy. 鈥淚 just can鈥檛 imagine the mentality that would allow that,鈥 says Knowles. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not pets. They never will be pets.鈥
Owls, he says, are just not built to be indoor companions. They mostly hunt at night (the business hours better accommodate us diurnal hominids), they have an exceptionally small attention span (caf茅 patrons looking for affection will be sorely disappointed), and they are stubborn by nature. That goes double for the Great Horned Owl, on offer at many of the coffee shops.
鈥淕reat Horned Owls are independent thinkers, which is a nice way of saying they're the most bloody independent, uncooperative critters on the face of the earth,鈥 Knowles says. He routinely travels around with owls that are unable to be returned to the wild, and says even the owls that know and trust him are obstinate and difficult.
And forget , one of the major draws of the caf茅s: It causes the birds extreme stress.
So they鈥檙e off-limits as pets; what about as working animals? 鈥淚've seen several very able, experience falconers say 'ooh, look at those weapons,'鈥 says Knowles. 鈥淯niformly, after two, three, four weeks, they said, 鈥楿h uh. Ain't gonna work.鈥欌
Worst of all, Knowles says, is the mentality that all wild animals, if cute enough, can be transformed into a pet. 鈥淚t鈥檚 sending an entirely wrong message as to how to deal with wildlife,鈥 he says. In the U.S., it鈥檚 illegal to keep owls as pets, and even licensed handlers like Knowles have strict regulations about what they can and can鈥檛 do with the birds. So you won鈥檛 be seeing an owl caf茅 in a city near you anytime soon鈥攂ut maybe that鈥檚 a good thing.