Do snowy owls eat dead things?
Snowy owls do not regularly use road kill or other sources of carrion. However that does not mean they never will. Like many Arctic species they are periodically irruptive (not seasonally predictable). This means in some years when their prey species have suffered a die back some must migrate south. Snowy Owls appear in large numbers in the US in cyclic patterns. Snowy owls feed so predominately on lemmings that when the rodent takes a nose dive the owl must turn to another food source or starve. Older established adults might remain but young inexperience birds migrate most often but in very bad years even adults migrate.
