Barn owls bought as pets for Harry Potter fans are being kept in poor conditions (few people having barns nowadays) or released to die.

It's teenage mutant ninja turtle syndrome. Except in the earlier case, terrapins were released into the wild to terrorise indigenous species. Now soft domestic owls are given a harsh lesson in the realities of life.

What sort of children are we bringing up that can't distinguish fact from fiction? Do popular, hard kids say 'I want to wear spoddy glasses and I want a fucking owl!'? Or do unpopular, bespectacled wimpy kids plead 'Please may I have an owl, mummy? Ben's got one and he's ever so affectionate.'

Harry Potter's owl, Hedwig, is a snowy owl who delivers mail and presents between witches and wizards. Snowy owls are two feet tall, live in the northern tundras of Europe and America, and hunt lemmings for food.

Hmm, lemmings. So that's why the morons are buying barn owls.