Harfang des neiges

Snowy owls are tundra specialists and have several adaptations to this environment. Unlike many owls, snowy owls are active during the day, especially in summer. They are nomadic birds, rarely breeding in the same place, and they will not breed at all if the prey population is low.

Although they have a wide variety of prey outside of the breeding season, their breeding success is tied closely to the population of the tundra-dwelling rodent the lemming. They are also migratory birds, and populations can move from north to south virtually anywhere in the arctic region.

In years where prey is plentiful, the snowy owl population can see increases in population due to reduced chick mortality that can cause the birds to extend their winter ranges much further south than usual. In the Arctic summer, they are found north of 60 degrees latitude across Eurasia and North America in in areas of open tundra with lemmings. Within Greenland the breeding distribution of the Snowy Owl in Greenland is restricted to the north-east and the far North-west, since there are no lemmings in southern and western Greenland. And you rarely see Snowy Owls on trips to Svalbard because there are no lemmings there.

The remote areas where they occur with the fluctuations in Lemming numbers make it difficult to assess the population, but the latest estimates put their numbers at fewer than 100,000 individuals worldwide, with possibly fewer than 40,000 breeding pairs. This makes their current conservation status “vulnerable”.