Mexican Spotted Owl

The Mexican spotted owl is one of the largest owl species in North America with the largest geographic range of the three spotted owl subspecies. Their range extends from the southern Rocky Mountains in Colorado and the Colorado Plateau in southern Utah southward through Arizona and New Mexico and discontinuously through the Sierra Madre Occidental and Oriental to the mountains at the southern end of the Mexican Plateau.

Mexican spotted owls nest, forage, roost, and disperse in a wide variety of biotic communities including rocky canyons in the northern part of their range extending to northern Arizona and New Mexico and southern Utah and Colorado.

Their nesting habitat is typically in areas with complex forest structure or rocky canyons, and contains mature or old growth stands which are uneven-aged, multistoried, and have high canopy closure. In the northern portion of the range (southern Utah and Colorado), most nests are in caves or on cliff ledges in steep-walled canyons.