BURLINGAME, CALIF.—The San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront Hotel has welcomed its newest and most unconventional hotel guests—six baby barn owls. Soon after discovering the owls nested on the 11th Concierge floor balcony, the hotel reached out to a wildlife expert at the San Mateo SPCA who confirmed that the owls are in fact barn owls and are protected native birds of prey.
The hotel is pleased to accommodate the privacy of the baby owls and foster their growth. General manager, Clif Clark explained, “Even when we’re sold out at the San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront, the owl family is not relocated to another property.” In honor of their most loyal customers who have been staying at the hotel going on six weeks, they have started giving out stuffed animal owls to children staying at the hotel when they pay the birds a site visit.
The barn owls are visited daily by their parents and other helpful owl friends who prey during the evening and support their kin who have been maintaining a very healthy size. While the babies are frequented by their mother and father, the parents have been residing in a different offsite location. The SPCA relayed that barn owls are likely to nest in the same location each year if it has proven safe, so the SFO Waterfront Marriott will most likely have “repeat customers.”
The family of barn owls continues to do well and the management has even started joking about naming the baby owls: Hoot, Nanny, Al, Peter Townsend, Robert Plant, Hedwig and Archimedes.
