What’s New with WBRA
Stewarding Trumpeter Swans Through the Seasons
Our summer Species-at-Risk Workshop Series concluded with our swan workshop on August 17 and featured a presentation from guest speaker Dale Becker, a retired biologist who worked extensively on trumpeter swan reintroductions with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Dale shared his experiences and wonderful context about swan populations and recovery actions south of the border in western Montana.
Nancy West then guided us to a local waterbody near Mountain View that hosts swans during the summer. The swans were shy that afternoon, despite the adjacent landowners seeing them on the pond earlier in the day; nonetheless workshop participants enjoyed viewing the habitat and learning what features create great swan habitat.
This workshop series was funded by Alberta Conservation Association, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Waterton Lakes National Park – thank you for helping us reach residents and landowners and increase understanding of our local species and the healthy habitats they require!
Photo by WBRA
Photo by WBRA
As an added bonus to our summer outreach work, Elizabeth Anderson, our conservation biologist, was invited by the Beauvais Lake Cottage Association on the September long weekend to share at the park amphitheatre about the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association’s swan project.
Cottagers and visiting campers alike learned how the breeding pair of trumpeter swans at Beauvais Lake contribute a higher-than-average number of cygnets to the productivity of the small breeding population in southwestern Alberta.
| Learn more about WBR Swans |
What’s next for our Trumpeter Swans?
Summer might be drawing to an end, but you can still engage with our swan project this fall season!
We will be continuing with migration monitoring again and are seeking both new and returning volunteers to help identify which waterbodies are used by swans migrating through the area as well as the relative number of swans relying on Waterton Biosphere Reserve wetlands as feeding and resting sites during their migration journey.
Training for new volunteers will be provided at the end of September (date to be determined), and monitoring occurs during October and November.
The level of commitment is flexible based on your availability, with most volunteers targeting to monitor their area by driving the roads therein once or twice a week.
If you are interested in participating or in learning more, please contact Elizabeth at eanderson@watertonbiosphere.com or 403-563-0058.
Building Resilience for Bats
Though bats are smaller than swans and are sometimes maligned, they are equally important components of our local ecosystems, and our local insect-eating bat friends are now also moving towards their overwintering sites.
Ten bat roosts were monitored this summer: most were at locations identified by landowners in previous years and/or sentinel roosts that contain large numbers of bats and that we have been monitoring for multiple years now.
Unfortunately, white nose syndrome inches closer to the Waterton Biosphere Reserve every year and this monitoring contributes valuable data to broader efforts by Alberta Community Bat Program and researchers trying to understand how our bat populations may be impacted by this disease when it arrives.
The great Bat Exploration Kit fall migration is upon us!
Our Bat Exploration Kits hosted at the Cardston and Pincher Creek libraries were well received and we had fun during associated interactive sessions with kids and families at these libraries.
Although the bat kits will be migrating to their winter home by the end of September, we hope to run this initiative in future years too as the bat detector and tablet held up well – thank you to the many families whose gentle use will ensure more people can learn about bats on or near their properties in the years to come.
| Learn more about WBR Bats |
If you didn’t have a chance to take a kit out on loan, look for our announcement that they have returned to a library near you next May!
Photo credit: Phil Meyers, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
We want to acknowledge and express a huge thank you to this year’s funders of our Building Resilience for Bats Project – Alberta Conservation Association, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Waterton Lakes National Park, and Shell-Foothills Legacy Fund – as well as a big thank you to Milk River Watershed Council of Canada for sharing their bat project at our workshop and Alberta Community Bat Program for their ongoing partnership in helping bats in Alberta!
