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Year 2 of our project is under way which means – it’s time to report your swan sightings

That’s right, the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association is flying into year two of our Stewarding Trumpeter Swans Through the Seasons project! Even though it feels like we just wrapped up year one of the project, there is no denying that trumpeter swans are on their way and we need to be ready.

 

Project Volunteer Call

Photo by Asher Warkentin

Want to be a volunteer birder for our swan project this spring? Here’s what you can expect:

• We provide training on how to identify trumpeter swans compared to tundra swans and how to collect and document your findings.
• Areas are assigned based on previous data on swan use of waterbodies and volunteer proximity.
• Volunteers go out once a week over an 8- to 12-week period to survey wetlands visible from roads in an assigned area, though some choose to go out more frequently.
• Multiple volunteers from further afield may be paired to allow more flexibility in scheduling.
• You get out to explore areas you might not have otherwise, while contributing information on swan use of the area that helps guide conservation actions.

We are now coordinating volunteers for training in swan identification and data collection for swan migration monitoring. Mandatory training for new volunteers will be held online via Zoom on Monday, March 14th (two hour session) followed by an optional field session on Sunday, March 20th.

 

If you would like to join our trumpeter swan project this year or would like more information, please reach out – swans@watertonbiosphere.com or 403-563-0058.

 

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Project Updates

Photo of Little Brown Myotis by Erin Low

Building Resilience for Bats

2021 Season Update

Stewarding Trumpeter Swans Through the Seasons

2021 Season Update

Up, up, and away! Trumpeter swans have headed south to their over-wintering areas (although nobody would consider southern Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming particularly tropical in the winter). Our 2021 Stewarding Trumpeter Swans Through the Seasons project was well received in the Waterton Biosphere Reserve community with 333 swan sightings recorded between March 2021 and November 2021. This included 122 sightings contributed by a team of volunteers who observed waterbodies accessible by road. Together the volunteers spent 350 hrs and covered over 10,000 km to help identify which waterbodies were used by trumpeter swans migrating through the WBR area. The map below shows the distribution of all sightings across the region.

Click image to enlarge

Local landowners also contributed information on swans breeding, attempting to breed, or younger loafing pairs on WBR waterbodies in the summer. Nests were established on 8 ponds or lakes, with only one pair failing to maintain their cygnets through to late August. On average, successful pairs generally raised 3 to 4 (average 3.7) cygnets with brood sizes ranging from 1 to 6 cygnets. Three of these families were on waterbodies lacking previous records of breeding and would not have been detected without the keen eyes and knowledge from nearby landowners.

Click image to enlarge

We want to give a big shout out to the landowners and volunteers who connected with our project this year – your sightings provided eyes and ears on the ground and helped with widespread coverage in the WBR area. We will be starting spring migration monitoring again in mid-March 2022, so please consider supporting the project by reporting sightings or volunteering next year! The ultimate goal is to raise awareness of the importance of healthy wetlands to species of concern such as trumpeter swans and to provide assistance to landowners who wish to improve their stewardship of these valuable wetland areas for wildlife habitat and water retention alike.

Photo credit: WBRA

Carnivores and Communities Program

Deadstock Program Paper Published

Carnivores and Communities Program had a paper published this month on the CACP’s deadstock program, including community perspectives, costs, and ecological and management considerations. Please check out our paper, Dealing With Deadstock: A Case Study of Carnivore Conflict Mitigation From Southwestern Alberta (Morehouse et al., 2021) in Frontiers in Conservation Science.

CACP Presentation for CBRA

Andrea Morehouse, recently presented in the Canadian Biosphere Reserve Association’s Research in Canadian Biosphere Regions webinar.

You can watch the webinar here. Andrea’s presentation on the CACP is at the 1:25:27 time stamp. Other presentations are from Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Region, Beaver Hills Biosphere, Redberry Lake Biosphere Region, Tsa Tue Biosphere Reserve and Georgian Bay Biosphere.

Photo credit: Ted Loosen

WBR 2022-2026 Cooperation Plan

2021 Update

We are in the midst of our Cooperation Planning process. We kicked off our Cooperation Plan with a six-week survey that ran from November 1 – December 13, 2021. We have received 144 survey submissions and will be working hard over the next while going over the results, compiling information, and beginning to process how we can integrate the constructive ideas presented as we prepare for our upcoming public forums.

What To Expect In 2022

With the survey now completed we are working on the second phase of our Cooperation Plan of hosting public engagement forums in February 2022.

We invite those that live, work, or have traditional territory in the Waterton Biosphere Reserve (i.e., Cardston County, M.D. of Pincher Creek, and Waterton Lakes National Park) to attend our upcoming forums.

Stay tuned for more information including dates, location(s), and registration. For now, mark February in your calendars as a month to help shape the future of the region by having your say.

For a more in depth look at the Waterton Biosphere Reserve’s Cooperation Plan, you can visit our webpage here.

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The Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association (WBRA) is looking for a part-time contractor to support our Cooperation Plan implementation, conservation programs, and operation and administration functions. The ideal candidate will be a generalist with a background in conservation and agriculture, having strong research, organizational and communication skills and experience with GIS mapping. As this is a broad range of skills, we would consider hiring a second contractor specifically to address the GIS mapping requirements, so please apply even if you do not have the required GIS experience.

This position is located in the Waterton Biosphere Reserve area of Alberta and has a minimum of 15 hours per week on average (with possible maximum of 35 hours per week depending upon qualifications and funding). The initial contract will be 7 months (December to June) with the possibility of extension.

Candidate selection will begin on November 13, 2021.

CLICK HERE to view the full Conservation Technician job posting and how to apply.

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Click poster to enlarge

• Learn about the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association’s project and how WBR residents have helped
• Hear from Susan Holroyd with the Alberta Community Bat Program
• Share your knowledge about possible bat roosting sites
• Watch for emerging bats and “listen” to them using bat detectors

• Find out why the Waterton Biosphere Reserve’s trumpeter swan population is unique
• Explore swan habitat and search for cygnets
• Hear from the Alberta trumpeter swan recovery team lead, Mark Heckbert (Alberta Environment and Parks)
• Share your knowledge of swan use on local waterbodies

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STEWARDING TRUMPETER SWANS THROUGH THE SEASONS

in the Waterton Biosphere Reserve

Wanted: Trumpeter Swan Sightings

Striking in size. Whitest of white feathers that inspire paint colour chip names. Wingspan wider than a pick-up truck. Species at risk poster child. Trumpeter swans are undeniably iconic.

This month the Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association is kicking off a new trumpeter swan project. We want to better understand what waterbodies swans are using locally (e.g., by breeding, post-breeding, or migrating birds) and help landowners understand how to best support this species and the healthy wetland habitat it requires. Your help is necessary to identify waterbodies used by swans and monitor swan numbers on those wetlands.

After suffering devastating impacts from hunting and habitat loss, trumpeter swan populations have rebounded from a historic low of 130 wild swans in Canada and the U.S. in the early 1900s to over 63,000 in the most recent count. While there may be no imminent swan song for trumpeter swans at the continental scale, the breeding subpopulation in southwestern Alberta is not large and is only stable at best.

Waterton Biosphere Reserve supports breeding swans that are geographically separate from others breeding further north in Alberta or further south in Montana. Continued use of known breeding waterbodies is critical to maintain this species of waterfowl. Swan expansion onto suitable but previously unused waterbodies appears to come from nearby areas as opposed to unfamiliar birds immigrating from more distant areas.

Photo by Kim Pearson

In addition to our breeding subpopulation, migrating trumpeter swans also use the Waterton Biosphere Reserve area in spring and fall, particularly areas along the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains. Because these migrating swans disperse to their breeding lakes in northern Alberta two to three weeks prior to spring thaw, the birds must arrive there with sufficient energy reserves to begin nesting soon after arrival. Wetlands and waterbodies earlier on their journey, known as stopover sites, are important to help them maintain or gain further energy reserves for these first weeks of breeding.

The reverse movement pattern occurs in fall: trumpeter swan families and individuals join staging flocks on marshes, rivers, and lakes before heading south as ice begins forming. These stopover wetlands may be more limited in extent than breeding habitat, and maintaining habitat quality and quantity at this restricted network of sites along their flight path through southern Alberta is important.

We are looking for your swan sightings from southwestern Alberta! Have you seen swan pairs with young in the past? Have you seen individuals without young? Have you seen flocks of swans in the spring or fall? Contact us at swans@watertonbiosphere.com or 403-563-0058 to discuss where and possibly arrange a visit from Elizabeth Anderson, the Waterton Biosphere Reserve conservation technician.

We are also looking for volunteer birders to help conduct roadside swan surveys. Spring migration surveys will occur from mid-March to April 30. Swans are extremely sensitive to disturbance during the breeding season (May 1 to July 31), so post-breeding and fall migration surveys will commence after this sensitive period. COVID-19 has limited our opportunities to give back to our communities, but if you enjoy birding and time in nature, this could be a great COVID-safe volunteer opportunity for you!

How can you get involved?

REPORT YOUR TRUMPETER SWAN SIGHTINGS

Join our efforts to help conserve trumpeter swans by reporting where and when you see swans in southwestern Alberta.

BECOME A VOLUNTEER BIRDER

LEARN HOW TO STEWARD TRUMPETER SWAN HABITAT

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Photo by Elizabeth Anderson

During our 2020 project field season, our Conservation Technician, Elizabeth Anderson, helped landowners to identify and monitor maternity roosts for bats. To correspond with when mother bats have flightless pups in the colony, the survey window was from June 1 to July 11, 2020. Maternity roost counts followed the Alberta Community Bat Program protocol where participants (i.e., technician, landowner, other volunteers) sat in lawn chairs watching for and counting bats leaving the suspected roost exit for one hour after sunset. Where guano (bat poop) was accessible, a sample was collected for lab analysis of the bat species using the roost. We were sometimes able to get a sense of bat species in the area using bat detectors like the one shown below.

We also met with landowners at properties known to support bats but where specific roost locations were unclear. These stewardship visits focused on exploring bat habitat in the area, discussing ways to maintain or improve habitat for bats on a given property, and using the bat detectors to identify possible species using the area.

WBRA’s Building Resilience for Bats Project Results

Our Building Resilience for Bats Project field season for 2020 has come to an end and was a great success!

Photo by Elizabeth Anderson

We had 20 WBR landowners reach out about bats and bat habitat in WBR, resulting in 30 total contacts during site visits and roost counts and another 10 additional contacts with no site visits.

There were 7 total roost counts completed and many more great discussions about bat biology, threats, and habitat needs through their reproductive cycle.

The species detected were dominated by little brown and big brown bats, though long-legged bats and the occasional hoary or silver-haired bat were detected as well.

The largest count saw 145 bats exiting the roost, but bat numbers would be greater if counts were conducted now as pups are now flying. Pups of little brown bats (the focus of the Building Resilience for Bats project) are typically born in late June/early July and take their first flight at 3 weeks of age. By 4 weeks of age, they are weaned and self-sufficient members of the colony. So as we head into the second half of summer and then fall, bat focus is fully on foraging and fattening in preparation for hibernation. So keep your eyes to the sky about a half hour after sunset and cheer them on as they devour our nighttime insects and fatten up for winter hibernation. Some bats may be distracted from all this feeding as mating occurs in the fall as well! Fun bat fact – the females store sperm so fertilization doesn’t actually happen until the spring.

When bats return in the spring, consider conducting a simple roost count (if you have a known roost on your property) on one or two warm June evenings annually to see if your bat numbers are changing. We would be happy to provide an explanation of this low-tech but very valuable monitoring method. For this information you can contact us at bats@watertonbiosphere.com. If you don’t have a roost and/or want to learn more about ensuring your property has high-quality habitat to support local bats, check out Alberta Community Bat Program’s Building Bat Friendly Communities Program Guide for more information by clicking here.

For more information on bats and our Building Resilience for Bats Project you can visit our project webpage here.

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Bats are an important part of the ecosystem in Waterton Biosphere Reserve (WBR). Unfortunately, bats in North America are threatened by white-nose syndrome (WNS), a fungal disease that has killed millions of bats since first noted in the eastern United States in 2006. Learn more about WNS here.

In the face of population-level challenges, WBR began a project in 2019 to work with local landowners to build resiliency for bats, in particular little brown myotis (or little brown bat). A resilient bat population will be quicker to recover from disturbances like WNS or severe weather through adapting to stresses, better resisting disease, and/or sustaining fewer mortalities.

In 2020, a Waterton Biosphere Reserve Conservation Technician will help landowners to identify and monitor maternity roosts for bats, specifically by identifying entry and exit points, conducting roost counts, helping determine the particular bat species through bat detectors and guano collection, and discussing ways to maintain or improve habitat for bats on a given property. To correspond with when mother bats have flightless pups in the colony, the survey window will be from June 1 to June 30.

Safety for landowners, surveyors, and bats remains our top priority during these uncertain times. Site visits will incorporate the latest Alberta Health Services requirements to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Our precautionary measures will be discussed with landowners prior to scheduling the technician’s visit (or scheduling for spring 2021 if necessary). The virus causing COVID-19 has not been found in North American bats, and wild bats in either natural or man-made roosts have very little chance of transmitting diseases to humans, unless handled without proper protection. Nonetheless, our work will focus on roost monitoring from a distance and identifying ways to steward bat habitat.

If you suspect you have bats roosting on your property, schedule a site visit with our Conservation Technician, Elizabeth, between June 1st and 30th. Scheduling can be done by emailing Elizabeth bats@watertonbiosphere.com or by calling Nora Manners 403-627-1473. Please contact us by May 27th (even if you would be more comfortable scheduling for next spring)!

We want to say a huge thank you to this year’s funders of our Building Resilience for Bats Project, Environment and Climate Change and Land Stewardship Centre of Canada and another big thank you to the Alberta Community Bat Program for their continued support. We greatly appreciate it!

#WBRBatsInTheBiosphere

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