One would have to look at the legalities of the issue first. The park
ranger must have a valid banding permit from the Banding Lab at Bethesda
Maryland and in addition, it must cover raptors including the Snowy Owl.
Usually, if birds are to be banded, it must be part of an approved study
(for instance, a banding station). If these things are met, then in the
interest of science, banding some of these owls could provide valuable
information on birds that may not normally get banded. Some information to
be gained would be knowing the overall fitness of the birds by weighing them
and getting an over all idea of health. Also, banding some of these
irruptive birds could give insight to survivability after or during an
irruption. To simply band the bird just because it "would be cool" I think
would be unethical.

Much banding I believe was done on the Great Gray Owls that irrupted in
Minnesota and Wisconsin last year as a way for biologists to get bands on a
large number of a species that normally would not get to be banded. Banding
is generally not too traumatic for birds as long as it is done quickly,
correctly and efficiently.

Jeff Kozma
Yakima