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November 2009

Welcome to On the Wild Side, WCS Canada’s e-newsletter. Through this newsletter we hope to keep our colleagues and supporters informed about the great wildlife conservation work being done by WCS across Canada. The newsletter appears approximately six times a year and we welcome any comments or suggestions, which can be emailed to wcscanada@wcs.org. Information on subscribing and unsubscribing is at the bottom of the newsletter.

Yukon’s Peel Watershed is a magnificent natural area, rich in wildlife. Planning for the region has been ongoing under the direction of the Peel Watershed Planning Commission, which issued a draft plan this spring. WCS Canada researcher Don Reid knows this area well and, together with Executive Director Justina Ray, he has drafted recommendations for significantly improving the draft plan, including protecting large watershed areas instead of just river corridors and adding stronger legal protection for conservation lands. Don has also collaborated with Commission members on finding ways to mediate the large differences between conservation and mining interests in the watershed. This largely undeveloped watershed is an excellent chance to take a precautionary approach to protecting habitat and species — putting conservation priorities ahead of development — and Don is working hard to make that happen.

Aberdeen Canyon in the Peel Watershed (Photo: J. Meikle, YTG)

A better map for stone sheep

Don Reid has also been busy mapping stone sheep habitat in north-western British Columbia. Knowing where the sheep are is important if their winter range is to be protected in the face of growing use by everything from helicopter skiers to snowmobilers. Don has spoken with government biologists in the Atlin region to go over his findings. Don will map out strategies for better surveying sheep populations in the area and hopes to find ways to manage access to the area to reduce disturbances to the sheep.

Getting the story on sturgeon

Sturgeon are ancient fish, but that doesn’t mean they deal well with human intrusion into their watersheds. In fact, sturgeon population health can be a good indicator of aquatic ecosystem health. WCS Canada researcher Jenni McDermid is researching northern lake sturgeon populations. With the help of a grant from WWF’s Species at Risk Research Fund, she is gathering traditional aboriginal knowledge about sturgeon in Northern Ontario and will also be conducting some genetic analysis. Right now, she is busy coordinating with other sturgeon researchers to collect tissue samples and devise questionnaires. At the end of it all, we hope sturgeon can tell us more about what is happening to the quality of the lakes and the fish during climate change and under different levels of disturbance and how well (or not) they are adapting.

Massive expansion for Nahanni

The expanded Nahanni National Park In June, the federal government announced a seven-fold expansion of the iconic Nahanni National Park. WCS Canada played no small role in helping to make this happen. Research conducted by John Weaver on the movement of grizzly bears, woodland caribou and Dall’s sheep over a four-year period emphatically demonstrated that the old park was simply too small to meet the needs of these species. The increase in park size from 4,766 square kilometres to 30,745 square kilometres within the South Nahanni River watershed and adjacent karst features closely follows recommendations made by John based on his research. The current park is in the traditional territory of the Decho First Nation, which supported the expansion process. An additional 7,600 square kilometres in the South Nahanni headwaters has also been withdrawn from development for consideration as a separate but contiguous national park in the territory of the Sahtu First Nation. This is a truly huge conservation success!

Photo: John Weaver surveys Nahanni karstlands / WCSC

Science speaks for caribou

Listing under the federal Endangered Species Act requires that a species “Critical Habitat” be identified. For the boreal forest population of caribou this process finally resulted in a scientific review that was publicly released by Environment Canada in April 2009. As a member of the science advisory team, WCS Canada executive director Justina Ray helped with the development of this important report that proposes Critical Habitat identification for 57 local populations across Canada. Follow-up activities will concentrate on developing range-specific disturbance thresholds that will be used to determine just what level of human disturbance populations can tolerate. Additional efforts are being made to bring the relevant science information into provincial-based planning, for example in Ontario where Justina has been advising on the completion of the Caribou Conservation Plan and associated habitat protection measures. It is hoped this science-based planning for caribou conservation will soon lead to some meaningful measures to proactively protect this species in the face of ongoing industrial development.

Science: The next generation

WCS is committed to not only excellence in science, but also to instilling a passion for conservation science in a new generation of researchers. Now, with the help of The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, we will be offering new fellowship positions for Ontario and Yukon. Our fellows will be selected this fall and we look forward to making them a vital part of WCS Canada’s dedicated team of researchers.

Bedside reading helps WCS Cheetah Project

As a spectacular companion to The Bedside Book of Birds Graeme Gibson’s latest book, The Bedside Book of Beasts, explores relationships between predators and their prey.

Gibson’s pairing of artwork with other literary works of art, such as poetry, fables, myths, and sacred writings, takes the reader into the world of fictional evil beasts such as the Minotaur and then onto the real thing, such as wild cats, wolves and bears, and even through to small but no less beast-like animals such as the ant-lion and the water shrew.

WCS Canada, as part of the WCS Global Conservation Program, is benefitting directly from the sale of this magnificent book. Gibson is generously donating half of the net profits from the sale of The Bedside Book to our WCS project in Iran to support The Iranian Cheetah Project in partnership with Panthera. So pick up your copy from your local bookseller today!