BELLE GLADE---University of Florida graduate researcher Cosandra Hochreiter checks on a barn owl nesting site on the grounds of UF's Everglades Research and Education Center, Tuesday 10/26. The five owlets in this corner were among several babies and their parents nesting in this abandoned barn at the research center, a part of UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Researchers are trying to boost the population of barn owls in the Everglades Agricultural Area because they are a natural form of rodent control. Rodents can cause up to $30 million damage per year to sugar cane and vegetable crops and a nesting pair of barn owls can eat almost 3,000 rodents over the course of a year. (AP Photo: Eric Zamora, University of Florida/IFAS) IFAS Print News Releases