For the second winter in a row, officials at the Windsor International Airport are doing their best to keep snowy owls at bay.
"We will band up three or four birds in a day," says Director of Operations Phil Roberts, describing how trapping and relocating snowy owls barely seems to put a dent in their population. "You'll catch three or four fresh birds like literally the next day."
Roberts says airport officials won't see snowy owls for a decade before the birds present a nuisance. There are a number of theories why snowy owls travel so far south including a drop in the rodent population in the far northern tundra, to a glut in the owl population.
They may delight bird watchers, but Roberts says they can present a real danger to aircraft because of their weight and the speed at which planes come in for a landing and takeoff. And while most birds are frightened off by the sound of approaching engines, snowy owls seem oblivious. "Planes and humans and vehicles don't seem to faze them much. They're really quite dumb, for lack of a better word, around an airport environment."
