Calgarians interested in preserving biodiversity and ensuring the survival of Canadian species will have an opportunity to actively participate in species conservation later this year.

The Wilder Institute will be launching a first-of-its-kind engagement with community groups through requests for proposals as part of a broader Wilder Canada Action Plan to save imperiled species globally, announced on May 15.

Dr. Gráinne McCabe, Chief Conservation Officer for the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo announced the made-in-Canada plan at the inaugural Reverse the Red World Species Congress.

She said that as part of the institute’s 10-year action plan, community groups would have a chance to be part of the efforts to provide endangered plant species relocation.

“If you are a community group that’s quite interested in one of the species at risk, it could be that you have an interest in starting a nursery for some of the plant species that need to be reintroduced,” said Dr. McCabe.

“Once we start to get the plan off the ground, we’re going to be accepting applications through an external call for proposals working with applicants who might not have a lot of experience in this sphere, to see how we can empower them and build capacity. So if you’re a school group or community group, there is an opportunity here to actually work in applied conservation here, trying to run one of these conservation translocation programs.”

Those RFPs, she said, would be coming later this year after the Wilder Institute after funding is received from the federal government, and from individual donors.

Looking at preserving some of Canada’s most at-risk species

Overall, the institute’s action plan is looking at the efforts required to preserve more than 270 species across Canada that are considered at risk of extinction.

A new aspect of species survival planning, said Dr. McCabe, was the need to look more seriously at the targeted translocation of species at risk instead of just restoring and protecting damaged ecosystems.

“For some species, their populations are just too small. So, if we think about the whooping crane, for example, in the 1940s there were only 21 birds. And at that level, that small level of animals, you simply don’t have enough genetic diversity,” she said.

“You could have 21 animals, but they’re not all breeding animals. So, some of the young, some might be older. So, your population is just so small that it could take an incredibly long time, or they could go extinct before their population can grow to a sustainable level.”

She said that another risk for species is they may have fragmented populations in addition to small population counts, which further adds to risk of extinction.

“You might have five animals in one location, 20 animals in another location. When that happens, they can’t find enough of each other in order to breed. If you have very low genetic diversity… then you might end up with a population that becomes very unhealthy because their genetics are simply not different,” Dr. McCabe said.

“If we breed them in captivity, we can look at their genetics and pair them up appropriately. We can also protect them from some of the threats they face in the wild, and then release them strategically in a safe location. So there’s just certain species where they need that that human intervention in order to bring those populations back.”

Andrew Yule, President of the Nose Creek Preservation Society, pointed out how local some of those issues of disconnected areas of biodiversity can be.

“The one thing that comes to mind for me, is our wetlands in general. The Miistakis Institute did a study in 2020 about our amphibians in Calgary, and how we’re losing the wetlands in Calgary due to development. It’s pushing all of our wetlands habitats to the outskirts of the city.”

Although the species looked at by that 2020 report were not amongst the ones most seriously threatened by extinction nationally, Yule pointed out how local decisions at the municipal level can lead to issues with biodiversity in wide areas such as the Nose Creek Watershed which extends from north of Crossfield to the centre of Calgary.

“I realized that they dried up one of the wetlands to make Keystone [Hills]. If you look at the aerial map from 2020 to 2023, there used to be a wetland there, but they pretty much dried it all up. It was a tributary to the Nose Creek. We’re just drying them up and developing on them.”

He said that an issue locally is that groups that look out for the interests of biodiversity and habitats aren’t being considered as part of development processes.

“I’m learning as I go here, that the only official referees are the community associations, and business improvement areas, associations, those are the only official referees at the City of Calgary. I get frustrated that there is no one preserving these wetlands because they’re not bringing us to the conversation because they don’t have to,” he said.

“They don’t feel that there is a need to bring in, say, the Wilder Institute to talk about this development that they’re making.”

He said that ideally there would be room to do translocation of species when needed, but that there should be conservation of habitats before there is a need for major action plans.

“I guess from my perspective, it’s like, can we do both? Can we try and protect the limited wetlands that we do have and also do translocation of the species.”

Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo uniquely positioned to provide support for conservation

Dr. McCabe said that the Wilder Instute/Calgary Zoo was uniquely positioned amongst Canadian organizations to do species translocation work, because of the deep experience the organization has in successfully running translocation programs already.

“It’s quite niche. It’s not a skill set that’s widely available across communities or conservation organizations, but it is something that the Wilder Institute specializes in. We have been doing breeding, release, and reintroduction, and we have been head-starting, which means bringing young animals into care and then releasing them when they’re fit and when they’re older. Or it’s moving animals between one wild location and another,” she said.

“That’s something that we’ve been doing for more than three decades really successfully for species here in Canada.”

She said that some of the species that the Wilder Institute is currently working on, and is looking at scaling up operations to save, include the Burrowing Owl and White Bark Pine.

“It’s not all animals, some of it is also plants. So there’s just some species like these that we think could really do with additional help some from the action plan,” Dr. McCabe said.

For more details on the Wilder Canada Action Plan, see wilderinstitute.org/wilder-canada-action-plan.