is the 2nd commonest detected breeding owl after the boreal owl in Finland with 2545 territories found, 1786 nests observed and 4722 nestlings ringed. An increase of the population was found in the Moscow region where tall stands remained despite the rather developed environment nearby. Occasionally, Ural owls are vulnerable to flying into manmade objects. In most parts of the range, they are less vulnerable than many other large birds of prey (in part because of their preference for remote forests) but certainly a few are likely to be claimed as such. Many such mortalities are due to wire collisions and electrocutions, which are likely increase especially as populations expand and move into areas closer to human habitations.Melnikov, V. N., & Melnikova, A. V. (2012). First Results of Surveys of Bird Electrocution in the Ivanovo District, Russia. Raptors Conservation, (24). Other collision kills, such as with glass buildings and, widely, with various automobiles, may too potentially be on the increase.Yun, W., Piao, Z.J., Lei, G., Wang, X.Y., Kong, Y. P., & Jiding, C. (2013). Road mortalities of vertebrate species on Ring Changbai Mountain Scenic Highway, Jilin Province, China. North-Western Journal of Zoology, 9(2). Though historically subject to some degree of persecution, Ural owls were spared from the worst of it perhaps by nesting in remote forests and possibly by being generally less predatory to small domestic fowl, game animals and the like than large raptorial birds like Eurasian eagle-owls, golden eagles and northern goshawks, all of which were badly persecuted and thusly reduced.Lõhmus, A. (2011). Three-year periodicity in historical raptor-persecution data: an indication of vole cycles? Estonian Journal of Ecology, 60(2), 155. Like other wild birds, Ural owls may be vulnerable to some degree of mortality due to diseases and infections but these are unlikely to compromise overall populations. A case of the bacterial infectious disease Tularemia was observed in an ural owl as was Usutu virus in a single bird.Meister, T., Lussy, H., Bakonyi, T., Šikutová, S., Rudolf, I., Vogl, W., Winkler, H., Frey, H., Hubalek, Z., Nowotny, N. & Weissenböck, H. (2008). Serological evidence of continuing high Usutu virus (Flaviviridae) activity and establishment of herd immunity in wild birds in Austria. Veterinary microbiology, 127(3-4), 237-248. 71.4% of 14 wild Ural owls in Japan had blood parasites while a smaller but still present number of Acanthocephala'' and roundworms were detected in known European data. Many Japanese Ural owls were