The end and beginning of the Arctic – The Arctic Journal

February 5, 2015

It has become clear that the Arctic as we know is coming to an end. In its place a new and very different kind of Arctic is beginning to emerge

In the winter of 2013-14, hundreds of milk-white birds with luminous yellow eyes and wingspans of up to two metres descended on beaches, farmers’ fields, city parks and airport runways throughout southern Canada and the United States.

Traditionally, snowy owls spend most of their time in the Arctic and subarctic regions. But every four years or so when populations of lemmings – among the owls’ favorite foods – cycle downward, a small number of young, inexperienced birds that are less adept than their elders at hunting will fly farther south than they might normally rather than starve to death. No one, however, had seen an irruption as big and as far-reaching as this one, which was the second major such event in North America in three years.

By the first week of December, the big birds were spotted from North Dakota to Maine and from Newfoundland to Bermuda. At one point, owls collided with five planes at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports.

Read More: http://arcticjournal.com/opinion/1305/end-and-beginning-arctic