Retiree earns inspiring nickname after rescuing hundreds of owls from airport: 'They might be hiding or ... sleeping'
Since 1981, Norman Smith has rescued more than 900 snowy owls from Boston Logan International Airport, The Washington Post reported.
The 73-year-old "Owl Man of Logan Airport" worked at Mass Audubon for nearly 60 years and continues to catch and release southbound snowy owls from the airport's runways.
The retiree's involvement at Mass Audubon began when he was a teenager, the Post said. Most recently, he served as the director of the organization's Blue Hills Trailside Museum. He remains an expert on snowy owls, having made discoveries about the species through both his work at Mass Audubon and the airport.
Logan Airport hosts the largest concentration of snowy owls in the Northeast, according to Mass Audubon. The birds migrate south from the Arctic when winter approaches, the Post explained, choosing the airport as their temporary home because of its resemblance to the barren Arctic tundra and abundance of food.
However, snowy owls pose risks to planes, passengers, and themselves. Collisions between birds and airplanes can hurt everyone involved, and Logan Airport recorded the deadliest bird-related airplane accident in 1960 when a flight crashed because of a flock of starlings, killing all but 10 people on board.
While policies to shoot birds at airports arose from accidents like this, Smith responded with a different strategy. He reached out to Logan Airport in 1981 and asked to humanely trap the snowy owls there, studying the birds before relocating them.
For the past 44 years, Smith has rescued about 10 to 15 owls a year, according to the Post. He attaches transmitters to some of the owls as part of the Snowy Owl Project, allowing him and his team to learn more about the birds' locations and migration routes. His work also landed him in a documentary.
"They might be just sitting there, they might be hiding, or they might be sleeping," Smith said about the owls. "They could be out on the salt marsh, roosting or feeding on a duck or a rabbit."
Snowy owl populations are decreasing because of warmer temperatures, which cause habitat and prey loss, and Partners in Flight listed the species on its Yellow Watch List.
Smith aims to protect the species by educating others about it and promoting care "for this world in which we live," Mass Audubon stated.
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