Handy with a hammer and knowledgeable about pests like gophers and mice, Chuck Ingels has shown farmers and consumers alike how to build barn owl boxes that attract raptors that "eat like maniacs." Ingels, a cropping systems analyst at the UC Davis-based UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, is encouraging the use of raptors such as barn owls and hawks that live and eat in orchards as useful, nonchemical tools in eliminating tree-destroying rodents. "They're called 'flying mousetraps' or 'cats with wings' because they have unbelievable appetites for rodents," Ingels says, noting that six young barn owls and two adults in one nest may eat more than 1,000 small mammals in a year. In the last year, he has distributed to farmers 230 packets of information on constructing barn owl boxes and is conducting a follow-up survey to find out the results of the boxes' use. Says Ingels, "There's a tremendous demand on the part of farmers for information on nonchemical ways to eliminate field rodents." Little information exists on whether barn owl boxes actually lead to gopher control, but according to Ingels, several farmers have observed that their gopher populations have greatly diminished after they put up nest boxes. Ingels has also constructed color-coordinated owl boxes for a school and a housing development.