Snowy owls have a circumpolar distribution. They breed in coastal Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, as well as in northern Scandinavia, Russia, southern Novaya Zemlya and northern Siberia. In winter, snowy owls can be found in Canada and the northern United States, sporadically further south into the U.S., in Iceland, the British Isles, northern Europe, central Russia, northern China and Sakhalin. While typically found in the arctic, periodic irruptions of "excess populations" occasionally move south, driven by a lack of food resources in the tundra. Snowy owl fossils have been found as far south as the Tropic of Cancer, and are believed to have originated in that region. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1995; Hoyo, Elliot, and Sargatal, 1999; National Geographic, 1999; Parmelee, 1992)

 

Biogeographic Regions: Nearctic; Nearctic :: Native; Palearctic; Palearctic :: Native

Other Geographic Terms: Holarctic