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Wildlife caught on camera

Parks Canada is hoping to install more remote motion-triggered cameras to capture powerful images of treasured wildlife going about their lives, including in the busy Bow Valley.
Remote cameras captured this image of a red fox.
Remote cameras captured this image of a red fox.

Parks Canada is hoping to install more remote motion-triggered cameras to capture powerful images of treasured wildlife going about their lives, including in the busy Bow Valley.

Parks Canada officials say they are using the cameras to monitor the abundance of grizzly bears, lynx, wolverine, wolves and whitetail deer populations – and for monitoring human use of the national parks.

Jesse Whittington, a wildlife biologist in Banff National Park, said the federal agency is working with several partners to test and refine this low cost, non-invasive way of monitoring changes in wildlife populations over the long-term.

“We started tallying up all of the camera projects that were going on and we decided we should all work together and pool our resources,” Whittington said at a recent Parks Canada conservation update in Banff.

“There’s interest in the province and the U.S. in monitoring multiple species of wildlife, wolverines, and grizzly bears, through cameras on a really big scale.”

About 200 motion-triggered cameras have been attached to trees or metal frames encased in rock cairns along hiking and game trails in high passes, canyons and other potential squeeze points.

The 40,000-square-kilometre study area includes Jasper, Banff, Yoho, Kootenay and Waterton Lakes national parks, as well as provincial lands in Kananaskis Country.

With no one actually behind the remote battery-operated cameras, these images offer a rare and privileged view of wild animals going about their every day lives.

Every time something passes the camera’s infrared beam, an image is taken and so far bears, wolverines, lynx, wolves, foxes and a host of other animals have been caught on camera.

Whittington said there are not many cameras in the Bow Valley – but they hope to put more out this year to gather more information on wildlife using these areas.

“We want to put cameras in areas where we think we have the highest probability of getting grizzlybear images,” he said.

So far, Banff researchers have discovered wolverines are concentrating in the Cascade area and that lynx appear to be scattered throughout the park.

Staff were surprised by the numbers of fox photos in Banff, noting very few staff have ever seen one in Banff National Park, which is a testament to the fox’s nocturnal and wily nature.

The Fairholme benchlands between Banff and Harvie Heights at the park’s east gate have also been found to be hotspot for wildlife activity, including for grizzly bears.

Whittington said grizzly bears have been recorded on most of the cameras placed in Banff National Park.

“Putting cameras on rub trees might also be a really good idea,” he said.


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