The Texas Tech Garden Welcomes Two New Feathered Friends

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The Texas Tech Greenhouse and Horticulture Gardens are beautiful places to visit on campus. Not only are they used for research and education, but they're also great places to walk around and admire all the beautiful plants.

If you’re familiar with the gardens, then you know they always keep a greenhouse cat around in order to keep pests down. Jupiter was their former kitty friend before his sudden disappearance in 2020, but now you can find the sweet orange cat named Ganymede that takes up residence in the greenhouse.

Alongside the beloved greenhouse cat, the garden recently welcomed two more animal friends to the roster that you might not expect.

According to a post made on the garden’s official Instagram account, a TTU ornithologist (a person that studies birds) placed two young great horned owls in the garden as a part of a research project. These types of owls can be found all over the state of Texas and are a beautiful and fascinating bird to see, so it is very exciting to have these new friends in the garden.

The university asks that anyone that comes across these birds while in the garden keep their distance and not interact with them. They're young birds that are still getting acclimated to their new surroundings, so the last thing you want to do is harm, scare, or otherwise disrupt these beautiful owls.

So be sure to keep an eye out for these new feathered friends next time you visit the TTU garden, but remember to leave them alone, give them plenty of space, and admire them from afar.