One curious and less well-known impact of the Mongol empire’s explosive expansion was a huge surge in the hunting of owls – almost to the edge of extinction in some regions. A Christian Pilgrim in Medieval Iraq), “the Tartars [Mongols] return bad for good to their friend the owl, for while they say that they honour it, they kill it and skin it, and make for them selves crowns out of the plumage. The Mongols transformed the lives of many, and not merely those within their extraordinary empire