Asia is their home As an object of research, the tawny fish owl is less dangerous than the Formosan black bear, and not as rare as the now extinct clouded leopard. The tawny fish owl is found in India, mainland China and Taiwan, but in the almost 20 years that birdwatching has been popular in Taiwan, this owl has been sighted very few times, and has always been regarded as rare.
以研究對象而言，雖然黃魚鴞不如黑熊危險，也不似雲豹已完全絕跡，但只分布在印度、中國大陸與台灣的黃魚鴞，在台灣賞鳥活動發展近二十年中，被發現的次數極有限，一直被視為稀有鳥類。