The snowy owl, Quebec’s majestic avian emblem and Harry Potter’s iconic companion, is at risk of becoming endangered if action isn’t taken to reverse the threats to its survival, an independent advisory panel has concluded.

David Rodrigue, the zoo’s executive director, pointed to a range of factors behind the snowy owl’s decline — many of them human-caused.

Snowy owls rely heavily on lemmings as a food source — a small rodent species also in decline, said Rodrigue.

Lemmings survive the winter by digging tunnels through the snow to feed on grasses and mosses. But with more rain events in the winter, the snow cover in the Arctic becomes more icy and solid, making it difficult for lemmings to dig.

This leads to malnourishment, population crashes and ultimately, impacts on snowy owl populations, whose numbers aren’t recovering naturally due to the persistence of these environmental pressures, added Rodrigue.

Rodrigue noted that many of (the owls) migrate south in winter — reaching areas like Montreal and the South Shore — where they often die after eating rodents that have been poisoned by rodenticides used in agriculture.