Owens was born and grew up in southern Georgia, where she spent most of her life in or near true wilderness. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from the University of Georgia, and a PhD in animal behavior from the University of California, Davis.[3]
Owens met Mark Owens in a protozoology class at the University of Georgia when they were both graduate students studying biology.[4] They married in 1973, and in 1974 moved to southern Africa to study animals in the Kalahari Desert and Zambia. She wrote about Africa in her memoirs Cry of the Kalahari, The Eye of the Elephant, and Secrets of the Savanna.[5] The couple were expelled from Botswana and are wanted for questioning in Zambia in relation to a murder investigation. They are no longer married. Since returning to the United States, Delia Owens has been involved in bear conservation.
The couple moved to Africa in 1974, travelling for some time before making camp in the Kalahari Desert, Botswana. Cry of the Kalahari was written about the couple's experience there. After they campaigned against the local cattle industry, Botswanan government officials expelled them from the country.[1] The Owenses then settled in North Luangwa National Park, Zambia, and later in Mpika, Zambia in the early 1990s.[1]Cry of the Kalahari and her two other non-fictional bestselling books, The Eye of the Elephant and Secrets of the Savanna, all concern the couple's research and conservation work. In Zambia they contributed to reducing the poaching of elephants, by helping poachers earn a living with skills such as beekeeping, carpentry, midwifery, and weaving.[9]
Owens is the co-founder of the Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation in Stone Mountain, Georgia. She has also worked as a roving editor for International Wildlife, lectured throughout North America and participated in conservation efforts for the grizzly bear throughout the United States.[18]
On March 30, 1996, the ABC news-magazine show Turning Point aired a documentary titled "Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story", which included the filmed murder of an alleged poacher, executed while lying collapsed on the ground after having already been shot. The victim is not identified by the story's narrator, the journalist Meredith Vieira, nor is the identity of the person or persons who fired the fatal shots off-camera disclosed. The ABC script refers to the victim as a “trespasser”.[22]
The editor-in-chief of The AtlanticJeffrey Goldberg subsequently interviewed Chris Everson, the ABC cameraman who filmed the killing of the alleged poacher. Everson told Goldberg that it was not a Zambian game scout but Christopher Owens who fired the fatal shots. Goldberg reported in an article called “The Hunted” in The New Yorker in 2010 that the Zambian police detective in charge of the subsequent investigation, Biemba Musole, had concluded that Mark Owens, with the help of his scouts, placed the victim's body in a cargo net, attached it to his helicopter, and then dropped it into a nearby lagoon. Musole led an effort to identify the alleged poacher, but did not succeed. The former Zambian national police commissioner, Graphael Musamba, told Goldberg that the investigation had been stymied by the absence of a body: “The bush is the perfect place to commit murder … The animals eat the evidence.”[22]
To this day, Delia Owens denies the incident, explaining that she was not involved and there was never a case. However, her novel Where the Crawdads Sing, has aroused suspicion from those on her book tour about the parallels between the main character Kya and her case, and Delia's own alleged accusation. The Owenses have denied the accusations.[22][23]
No charges were brought against Owens or her ex-husband Mark, or stepson Christopher.
In June 2022, Zambian police officials told Jeffery Goldberg that they believe that Delia Owens should be interrogated as a possible witness, co-conspirator, and accessory to felony crimes. Zambia's chief prosecutor Lillian Shawa-Siyuni told Goldberg that the investigation related to the killing of the alleged poacher, as well as other possible criminal activities in North Luangwa has been hampered by the lack of an extradition treaty between Zambia and the United States, and by ABC's apparent refusal to cooperate in the investigation, saying, “There is no statute of limitations on murder in Zambia...They are all wanted for questioning in this case, including Delia Owens.”[22]
^Owens, Delia D., and Mark J. Owens. "Helping behaviour in brown hyenas." Nature 308.5962 (1984): 843-845.
^Owens, Delia, and Mark Owens. "Notes on social organization and behavior in brown hyenas (Hyaena brunnea)." Journal of Mammalogy 60.2 (1979): 405-408.
^Owens, Delia, and Mark Owens. "Social dominance and reproductive patterns in brown hyaenas, Hyaena brunnea, of the central Kalahari desert." Animal Behaviour 51.3 (1996): 535-551.
^Owens, Mark J., and Delia D. Owens. "Feeding ecology and its influence on social organization in brown hyenas (Hyaena brunnea, Thunberg) of the central Kalahari Desert." African Journal of Ecology 16.2 (1978): 113-135.
