I am a local in North America

Chapter 13 Snow Owl
Somewhere about one kilometer from Camp Sujere.

Upstream from the dried-up river, a white snowshoe hare cub suddenly poked its head out from the frost-covered reeds. After running a short distance, it seemed to sense something was amiss and immediately took off running.

In the woods, a snowy owl was flying low, chasing after the panicked snowshoe hare cub.

The snowy owl, also known as the "snowy owl," is mainly distributed in parts of North America, Asia, and the Arctic. It is relatively large, with a length of more than half a meter from head to tail. It mainly prefers to be active and forage during the day. Its thick feathers allow it to move freely in environments as cold as -50 degrees Celsius.

Don't underestimate the little snowshoe hare cub; it has a remarkable ability to survive. Every time a snowy owl swoops down to catch it, the little hare always manages to seize the opportunity and precisely burrow into the snowdrift.

This life-or-death struggle lasted for more than two hours. The snowy owl was quite patient, standing quietly on the branch each time it lost track of the snowshoe hare cub.

Food is hard to find in winter, so when you finally come across it, you're not going to let it go easily.

The little rabbit wasn't as clever as it; it would hide for ten or twenty minutes and then pop out to see if the predator had left, with a sip of hay in its mouth, chewing rhythmically.

They fled and were pursued simultaneously.

Just as the snowy owl seized its opportunity, swooping down and extending its sharp claws, thinking the snowshoe hare was doomed, its wing suddenly caught on something. Immediately, a snare made of steel wire tightened, suspending the snowy owl in mid-air.

No matter how much it struggled, it could not escape. Several of its white feathers, with dark spots, fell out during the snowy owl's struggle.

Seeing the snowy owl in distress, the snowshoe hare cub looked bewildered. It burrowed into the snowdrift and hid for a few minutes. After eating some dry grass, it even had the leisure to take a closer look at the snowy owl before burrowing back into the snow to continue eating grass, seemingly having forgotten that it had just been hunted.

Small animals living in the wilderness face life-or-death crises from time to time. What has enabled them to survive to this day is not intelligence or strength, but an astonishing rate of reproduction.

For example, snowshoe rabbits can have up to four litters a year, with each litter typically containing 3 to 8 offspring. The gestation period is only a little over a month, and the baby rabbits can survive independently after one month of birth.

This snowy owl, having eaten thousands of mice or rabbits since birth, probably never dreamed it would be defeated by a snowshoe hare cub.

It really is a coincidence.

Since entering the competition, Su Jerry's traps have hardly been used, and he has only caught one grouse.

Often, he would even forget about the traps he had set. Only when he was bored and suddenly remembered them would he pretend to check them. He never thought of using the traps to fill his stomach.

After the cold wave arrived, there were fewer and fewer living creatures in the wild, and he had almost abandoned the traps he had set in advance, not checking them for several days in a row.

On the lake in the distance.

After the crew left, Su Jierui caught two more fish, neither of them very big, only about 20 or 30 centimeters long, which should be enough to eat for two days.

My thighs went numb from squatting, and my buttocks were freezing from being too close to the ice. But then I suddenly remembered to reuse things and found an abandoned raft to use as a windbreak. Suddenly, the comfort of fishing improved.

The sun was about to set, the sky was dark and gloomy, and it would probably snow again that night. He packed up his fishing rod, took the two fish with him, and, leaning on his non-slip cane, began his journey back to the camp.

Worried about being caught off guard by the black bear, Su Jierui made a soft "Huh?" sound while habitually checking the surroundings.

In his field of vision, the icons for Snowy Owl and Snowshoe Hare appeared in the distant woods, and they were very close.

"There are snowy owls living around here? No wonder I usually have so few prey, and it's hard to find grouse and rabbits. I guess this old snowy owl has snatched them all!" He wasn't excited, but rather helpless. The thought of eating fish for dozens of days made Su Jerry unhappy.

Growing up, my family's dining table rarely lacked seafood. Even here in the wilderness, we mainly ate fish. I'm almost numb from it all.

Snowy owls are protected animals in Canada, and the show prohibits contestants from hunting them. If caught, they could lose their prize money, or even face prosecution, imprisonment, and fines.

Su Jerry wasn't interested in the old snowy owl that showed it was 14 years old, and the snowshoe hare that was only 2 months old probably didn't have much meat on it, but he still went over to take a look.

The sky was dark over the lake, and the snow-covered forest was also gloomy. In some places, the snow was more than knee-deep, making it difficult to walk.

He had already turned off the action camera; there was no need to explain why he had come. Once he reached the vicinity of the trap, panting, he resumed filming, saying:
"Look what I found! The trap I set actually caught a snowy owl, but it's a protected animal."

"Judging from the footprints on the ground, it must have accidentally run into my trap while chasing the rabbit. How unlucky!"

"We don't know yet if the snowy owl is injured. I'll release it. Luckily, we found it during a check-up. If we had waited until tomorrow morning, it would probably have frozen to death."

"Be good, I'm saving you, don't struggle. This is the first time in my life I've been so close to a snowy owl. Let everyone see, they're quite cute..."

The snowy owl has a relatively large head and a rounded body. It has a pair of bright yellow eyes and looks both majestic and cute, like the owl used to deliver messages in Harry Potter.

The trap is quite simple; just grab the snowy owl's wing and release the steel cable.

After checking it while filming the footage, Su Jerry found that it was not seriously injured. He simply patted the snowy owl's head and put it aside.

The old snowy owl, having recovered from its previous shock, immediately set its sights on the fish in Su Jierui's hand, flapping its wings as if trying to snatch it.

Most likely due to the severe cold wave, after several days without food, they became so hungry that they stopped caring about anything else.

I thought about it.

He couldn't bear to just give away the fish, so Su Jierui took out a dagger, cut open the already frozen fish on the spot, threw the two fish's internal organs to it, leaving only the fish liver and swim bladder.

Then they continued walking forward, following the footprints left by snowshoe hares on the ground, pretending to search for the little rabbits hidden in the snow.

It's not that I want to eat it, but I hope to keep it as a pet and have it by my side. Anyway, it's easy to feed it some hay.

Soon.

Using his cheat code, he precisely dug through the snowdrift, caught the baby snowshoe hare, and even showed it to the action camera:

"So small? No wonder the footprints aren't big."

"Let's keep it for now. We caught a lot of fish today, so we don't need to eat this rabbit."

"Thanks to nature's bounty, once I win the million-dollar prize, I'll release it back into the wild. The temperature has plummeted recently, and the carnivores that can't find prey are going crazy. There are also red foxes around here, so even if I release it now, it probably won't live to adulthood..."

(End of this chapter)