Bonaparte’s Gull Release

Bonaparte’s Gull Release

Bonaparte’s Gull Release

4 minute read – 

A Bonaparte’s gull was brought into the Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve after it was found flightless on the side of the road. The bird has no significant injuries, some feather damage and was likely concussed. A short time in the centre to recover, eat fish and get strong meant a successful release of the animal to Tàa’an Män — Lake Laberge on the traditional territory of the Ta’an Kwach’an Council.

Lindsay Caskenette

Lindsay Caskenette

Manager Visitor Services

Lindsay joined the Wildlife Preserve team March 2014. Originally from Ontario, she came to the Yukon in search of new adventures and new career challenges. Lindsay holds a degree in Environmental Studies with honours from Wilfrid Laurier University and brings with her a strong passion for sharing what nature, animals, and the environment can teach us.

867-456-7400
Lindsay@yukonwildlife.ca

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Your Yukon NightHawks

Your Yukon NightHawks

Your Yukon NightHawks

This article was originally published in The Preserve Post newsletter in Spring 2016. More current information and contact for the regional project can be doing on WildResearch.

2 minute read – 

Is it true, that the early bird gets the worm? Not always!

COIN male. 
Credit: Anne Brigham

A group of highly camouflaged birds, called nightjars, spend their days resting, waking  up just in time for sunset. These birds are most active during twilight – not actually early birds!

The Common Nighthawk, the Yukon’s only nightjar, can often be found feasting on insects above the YWP wetlands during those twilight hours.

 

offspring nightjars nighthawk, wildlife research blog.

Common nighthawk chicks July 7.
Credit: Andrea Sidler

You’ve likely heard the electric peent calls of nighthawks filling the air, or maybe observed their silhouettes circling high above. Perhaps you’ve witnessed the males’ aerial maneuvers as he protects a territory. He shows off his white wing-bars to potential mates while performing spectacular dives toward the ground, pulling up at the last minute, and creating a  mechanical “booming” sound with his wings.

Nighthawk sound recorder. Audio wildlife research.

A sound recorder mounted to a tree with some information for a, human passerby. Credit: Andrea Sidler

In the Yukon, we are lucky we get to experience these unique birds. It is not like this everywhere. In fact, Canadian populations have declined by over 50% in just 30 years (status: Threatened). As a species, nighthawks are poorly understood, particularly here, on their boreal forest breeding grounds.

By using remotely recording sound meters, Canadian Wildlife Service investigated how the Norths’ perpetual daylight influenced the timing of nighthawk activity. For two summers, the YWP was home to recorders which, each night, recorded the calls of resident populations. During June, nighthawks were most active around 2:00 am. However, by the end of July, as true night returned to the YT, this changed.

female nighthawk, nightjars. wildlife research blog

A well camoflauged female.
Credit: Andrea Sidler

There were two activity peaks, one at dawn (4:00 am) and one at dusk (11:30 pm) –similar to southern populations – demonstrating that nighthawks are indeed affected by the changing day-length!

We are trying to learn more about what landscapes our nighthawks use. To help address this, WildResearch is expanding their nighthawk surveying program to the Yukon this summer. WildResearch relies on the collective power of volunteer citizen scientists to conduct surveys (2-3 hrs), which contribute data to conservation efforts. If you’re interested in getting involved contact your regional coordinator. Find out who that is by visiting the WildResaearch site.

Andrea Sidler

Andrea Sidler

Guest Researcher / Author

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Moose Hair Loss Study

Moose Hair Loss Study

Moose Hair Loss Study

This article was originally published in The Preserve Post newsletter in Spring 2019. In April 2022 Emily et al., published a paper Improving Widescale Monitoring of Ectoparasite Presence in Northern Canadian Wildlife with the Aid of Citizen Science on this project.
10 minute read – 

Ever had an itch you just can’t scratch? For moose and other large deer species, winter ticks are an annual burden. These blood-feeding parasites live for only one year and spend almost their whole life on the same host. Moose are often the worst affected – and although a few ticks on an individual is no big deal, winter tick numbers can sometimes reach 50,000-100,000 ticks per animal. These severely infested moose just keep scratching, trying to rid themselves of the parasites, and may lose large amounts of blood, valuable time feeding, and significant amounts of hair. The distinct patterns of tick-induced hair loss are most noticeable on moose from March to May when the ticks are at their largest, and is a key indicator that winter ticks are present in a region. Hair loss can range from very mild, with just a few patches on the shoulders and neck, to extremely severe or “ghost moose”, which have damaged or missing hair over more than 80% of their body.

 

The Yukon Winter Tick Monitoring Project is a collaboration between Environment Yukon and researchers at the University of Toronto. Its aim is to find out where in Yukon winter ticks are now, and where they could be in future, given the effects of climate change. Until recently, there were no winter ticks found in Yukon. Early reports began in the 1990s, and although relatively low numbers of them have been found to date, little is known about their distribution and effect on native Yukon species. Changing environmental and climate conditions play an important role in the winter tick-host relationship, with warmer, wetter seasons and shorter winters known to increase tick survival. Finding new methods of detecting winter ticks and their impact on hosts is important for us to understand how and when management could be needed.
To help with this research, the moose at the Preserve have been having their photograph taken more than usual! Moose, like many other mammals, shed their heavier winter coat each year, resulting in a natural pattern of hair loss. To better understand what a healthy, tick-free Yukon moose looks like over the winter and into spring, two high-resolution
wildlife cameras were installed in the moose enclosure in December 2018. These cameras automatically take a photograph every time a moose walks past, and will continue to capture thousands of images each month until May.
The resulting catalogue of monthly moose hair shedding patterns will form a critical baseline from which to compare images of wild moose, photographed by additional remote cameras that have been set up throughout southern Yukon. This work will allow us to examine the current effects of winter ticks in this region and will additionally form an important part of a larger
scale study that looks at winter tick spread under climate change throughout North America.
Interested in Contributing?
If you see a moose or other animal with patchy hair, you can help to inform this research by submitting a  photograph directly to Emily (emily.chenery@mail.utoronto.ca), online through the Yukon Winter Tick Monitoring Project Facebook page, or citizen science app iNaturalist. Sightings can also be reported directly to
Environment Yukon’s Animal Health Unit in Whitehorse. Yukon Winter Tick Monitoring Project.
Emily Chenery

Emily Chenery

Guest Researcher / Author

Emily Chenery is a PhD student at the University of Toronto Scarborough studying the range expansion of winter ticks into Yukon. This project at Yukon Wildlife Preserve is being assisted by BSc student Maegan McCaw (University of Alberta), and funded by EC’s W. Garfield Weston Fellowship from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Canada, with additional support from Environment Yukon’s Animal Health Unit.

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