97% of Short-billed Dowitchers breed in the boreal forest
Credit: Jeff Nadler
When many of us think about the word ‘biodiversity’, we often think of it to mean species diversity—the number of species present within a specific area. However, biodiversity represents so much more than just how many species occur where. There are a number of [...]

Last Thursday world-renowned conservationist J. Michael Fay came to Seattle at our invitation to talk about some of the emerging mining threats to the remote northwestern corner of British Columbia. The area was mostly untouched by human development until the past several years until an enormous number of large-scale mining projects, driven by rising gold [...]

George River caribou herd
Credit: Valerie Courtois, Canadian Boreal Initiative
As a follow up to our last post about the ever-dwindling George River caribou herd of northern Quebec and Labrador, we thought you might be interested in hearing another opinion on the matter. As you may or may not have heard, Labrador has recently issued a [...]

We received permission from Fletcher Smith of the Center for Conservation Biology to post the following update about Hope, a Whimbrel whose migration has been tracked via satellite for the past several years. We thank Hope for her years of service in helping to understand Whimbrel migration and wish her a happy retirement. You can [...]

The following is a guest post by Christian Artuso of Bird Studies Canada. Over the past few years he has been helping to organize and develop the Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas, a comprehensive outlook of which birds breed in Manitoba and where. As Christian mentions below Manitoba has an extremely low population density, making the extraordinary volunteering [...]

Until recently, Whimbrels have proved to be somewhat of a mystery to scientists. Noting a decline among the long-distant migrants, which typically breed up in arctic Canada, scientists set out to better understand the everyday life of a Whimbrel and what might be leading to their decline.

Whimbrel
Credit: James Robinson
Part of the difficulty in understanding [...]

Just over two years ago the unthinkable happened. After decades of disputes and fighting over logging in pristine parts of Canada’s boreal forest, environmentalists and forest companies finally decided to talk to each other directly about their concerns rather than by exchanging sound bites through the media.

Log pile in Canada’s boreal forest
Credit: Garth Lenz
Although [...]

Boreal forest
Credit: Valerie Courtois, Canadian Boreal Initiative
If you’re a regular returner to this blog you are likely aware that while we support bird conservation in almost every instance, our particular focus and passion is the preservation of Canada’s boreal forest. This (we think) is for good reason: the boreal is one of the world’s [...]

Today is World Water Day. With high temperatures scorching much of the United States and Canada many of you may be turning World Water Day into World Water Park Day, but regardless of how you spend it we should all spend a minute to appreciate the ultimate source of life on earth.
The UN’s theme this [...]

Today the public comment period for the Canadian federal government’s woodland caribou recovery strategy ended. Woodland caribou populations have been spiraling downward for decades, prompting concern among environmentalists, Aboriginal communities, and many everyday citizens concerned with the future of our planet.

A lone caribou crosses a river in Labrador.
Credit: Valerie Courtois, Canadian Boreal Initiative
The government actually [...]