Observations of Great Horned Owls (Bubo virginianus) Hunting Wild Fish in Central Wyoming, USA

Climatic and environmental conditions often play significant roles in species distributions.Changes in seasonal weather patterns often affect habitat selection processes, thus altering how animals use available resources (van Beest et al. 2012).Precipitation, such as snow and ice, can often lead to constraints on habitat use (Halpin and Bissonette 1988) and affect selection processes (Sakuragi et al. 2003) in many temperate species.Generalist predators, when faced with limitations or constraints on their primary prey resource, tend to (1) switch to alternative prey resources within a given patch (i.e., preyswitching; Kjellander and Nordstrm 2003), (2) move to different patches within their home range to forage (e.g., ideal free distribution theory; Fretwell and Lucas 1970), (3) change their foraging strategy (i.e., from predation to facultative scavenging; Priquet et al. 2015), or (4) engage in facultative migration (Watts et al. 2017, McCrary et al. 2019).The ability for animals to quickly identify environmental change and adapt (e.g., phenotype by environmental feedback loop) has been documented in numerous species, including migratory ungulates, birds, and bats (Winkler et al. 2014).Great Horned Owls (Bubo virginianus) are large, long-lived, nonmigratory owls found throughout most of North America (Johnsgard 2002, US Geological Survey 2023).The species' widespread distribution across many biogeographic regions, large size, and diverse diet distinguishes it from other owl species (Artuso et al. 2022).Although small mammals