This winter was nothing if not snowy, and while Ontarians faced poor driving conditions and snow-ins, for some of our feathered friends, the persistent winter storms meant starvation.
One northern Ontario wildlife rescue centre admitted 25 owls over the winter months, three to four times the numbers they usually see, says Gloria Morissette, the founder of Turtle Pond Wildlife Centre in Val Caron, Ont.
While it’s been more than three weeks since Morissette admitted an injured or emaciated owl, due to the thick snow and icy top layers that persisted throughout the winter in many regions, higher numbers of owls struggled to maintain their diets as prey such as mice and rats escaped capture under the thick drifts.
At the same time, winter 2025 was a “definite irruption year,” says Morissette—a biology term for a year where a drop in food supply in a bird’s typical habitat forces them to seek prey farther afield.
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For Ontario’s northern owl species, this meant venturing south in larger numbers than usual. But instead of finding mice and rats aplenty, they found equally poor hunting conditions, driving many to starvation or injury as they entered communities in search of food.
“We’ve gotten species that we don’t normally get a lot of. I think there’s been a lot of unusual migration south for some species like the boreal owl,” says Morissette. “Within a three-week period in January, we admitted three, which is really unusual because they don’t usually hang around people, they stay in the boreal forest.”
Around half of this winter’s owls turned up to Turtle Pond emaciated, says Morisette, with the other half having suffered a blunt force trauma of some kind after they got into trouble in the unfamiliar environments of northern Ontario towns, flying into windows or getting struck by cars.
In one instance, an individual dropped off an emaciated barn owl after it lingered on their patio for an unusual amount of time.
“He was sitting on the railing of someone’s deck for three days,” says Morissette. “Seeing an owl perched there for an afternoon, or even a full day, might not warrant intervening, but when it’s there for several days on end not moving…by the third day it was kind of leaning against the house on the railing, and it was weak and didn’t really care what was going on around it.”
In another instance, someone even saw a boreal owl fall out of a tree.
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Further south, in the town of Vineland, just outside of St. Catherines, another animal rescue centre—The Owl Foundation—also reported high levels of owl intakes, screech owls in particular.
“Many came in underweight or emaciated from more rural areas around the Bruce Peninsula and north of Toronto,” says Annick Gionet, the chief rehab technician at The Owl Foundation. “We saw similar numbers a few years ago, back in the winter of 2014-15, and again in 2022-23, both relating to snow depth and/or snow having an icy, hard top layer making it challenging for the birds to break through to grab the rodents underneath.”
When it comes to treating emaciation, Gionet says recovery can take between three to four weeks depending on the severity of the case.
“We start with focusing on hydration, fluids administered subcutaneously (under the skin) and oral gavage flushes,” says Gionet. Ahead of giving the owls calories, the team does bloodwork to make sure the birds can handle it. “Sometimes, if it is a long emaciation event, the owls’ organs start to shut down and adding calories right away will kill them.”
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This is why, she adds, it is very important that people refrain from feeding wildlife as they could be doing more harm than good. At The Owl Foundation, staff first feed the starved birds a liquid calorie diet, eventually transitioning to solid food. “Every case is different, and there is no cookie cutter approach, but our standard protocol is hydrate first and slowly introduce calories,” says Gionet.
If you come across an owl or any other wildlife that seems unwell, Gionet advises reaching out to your local licensed wildlife rehabilitator and giving the animal space. Interacting with a starving owl may only drive it further into starvation.
“Do not cause it to lose focus on the hunt, or cause it to fly and waste energy,” she says. “Owls see humans as a threat and typically will not hunt in proximity of them.”
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