(May 05, 2014) As part of the 15th North American Caribou Workshop in Whitehorse, YK, running from the 12th to the 16th of May 2014, we are hosting a free public Celebration of Caribou event, including films and storytelling. Come out if you are in the neighbourhood! See the Press Release for the Event Here

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(March 31, 2014) Our Dr. Don Reid has co-authored a paper that was published online last week in Nature Climate Change. The study was an international collaboration to investigate the effects of climate change on Arctic food webs, and found that predation on herbivores is increasing - it is going up by 4.5% for each degree Celsius increase in temperature! This paper shows that predators are the main drivers of the Arctic food chain, just like in the African savannah and North American Great Plains. However, larg...

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(March 17, 2014) We have launched a blog, called Muddy Boots, for our scientists to share their stories from the field and reflections on conservation issues in Canada. Our scientists spend a lot of time in the field and have many fun tales to tell about close encounters with wildlife, confronting the elements, and the joys and frustrations of being in some of Canada's most remote pieces of wilderness. Being in the field also gives them lots of time to think about conservation issues and how we might go abo...

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(March 13, 2014) In November 2013, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), an independent scientific committee, had a meeting to evaluate the conservation status of several species, including Plains bison and Wood bison. This committee meets twice annually to assess the conservations status of species in Canada and recommends any changes to the Minister of the Environment. Plains bison were assessed in 2004 as Threatened and their status did not change through the most recent meet...

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(March 12, 2014) Our Gillian Woolmer has worked with other members of the 2C1Forest collaborative to compile available data on the flora and fauna of the Northern Appalachian/Acadian Ecoregion into a central database. The resulting Conservation Atlas of maps has now been made available online through a user-friendly platform called DataBasin. This new tool will give a big leg up to conservation organizations with few resources to create and manage their own datasets, as it allows users to create custom maps, dow...

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(January 29, 2014) As mandated by Ontario’s 2010 Far North Act, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources is finally developing a regional land use strategy for the Far North. It remains to be seen if any of the recommendations on climate change, planning for infrastructure, and cumulative effects made by Ontario’s Far North Science Advisory Panel, including our own Dr. Justina Ray, will be part of this strategy going forward. See the context of this process posted on the Environmental Registry h...

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(January 29, 2014) Arctic wildlife is undergoing major shifts as climate change impacts the Arctic environment. This has included steep declines in Arctic bird populations. Our Dr. Don Reid explains the link of some of these shifts to declining lemming numbers as snow cover is reduced in this Yale Environment 360 article.

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(January 20, 2014) WCS Canada has been conducting research on the impacts of climate change in northern Ontario since 2007 and, together with Dr. Molly Cross, hosted a science-based workshop on freshwater fish in 2012.  Freshwater fish, wildlife, and water are important to Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation who declared that 13,025 square kilometers of lakes, rivers, forest, and wetlands, including Big Trout Lake be protected by the community from any development.  As part of our climate...

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(December 30, 2013) Our Dr. John Weaver has written a great op-ed for National Geographic on issues around a lack of conservation in Alberta's new regional plan for the South Saskatchewan region. Click here for the story and some great photos.

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(November 14, 2013) Our John Weaver's most recent report, Protecting and Connecting Headwater Havens, has come in very handy in assessing the Government of Alberta's draft regional plan for the southern portion of the province, released in October. Using evidence from the report, John was able to assess the regional plan's capacity to protect iconic species such as grizzly bears, bighorn sheep, wolverine, and the threatened bull trout. The regional plan designates regions such as mountain tops and other poor h...

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