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The Royal Saskatchewan Museum is sharing some results from its urban wildlife research program, currently taking place.
Over the past three years, researchers have set up 28 biodiversity monitoring stations including motion-activated trail cameras to capture images of large mammals and automated microphones that can record both bird songs and bat calls.
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The stations, which are active for one month in each season, are distributed around the city, including central areas and more natural areas outside of the city limits.
Some of the areas most commonly frequented by wildlife include the Habitat Conservation Area in Wascana Park, along with AE Wilson Park and the old Craig Golf Course.
Dr. Ryan Fisher, the museum’s curator of vertebrate zoology, said urban areas like the Queen City can be a valuable habitat for wildlife conservation and management.
“This research helps us understand how different levels of urban development influence wildlife,” Fisher said in a statement.
“So far, we detected 143 different bird species and 15 mammal species.”
While the American robin and Canada goose were the most frequently recorded birds, rarer species captured by the museum’s recording equipment included the yellow rail and the black-billed cuckoo, which was described as “an extremely rare sighting in Regina.”
When it comes to mammals, the white-tailed jackrabbit and Richardson’s ground squirrel were the most common sightings, but one station detected a rarely seen American mink, and a couple of moose were spotted in Wascana Park.
“Initial observations indicate no real impact from urbanization on the number of mammal species that we are seeing,” Fisher said.
“This is likely because a lot of the mammals we observed around Regina are fairly well-adapted. Even in very urban areas such as the Regina Cemetery on 4th Avenue, we observed both deer and red fox.”
Fisher said the research team will continue to monitor the same sites every few years in order to learn more about how wildlife is changing as the city grows and expands, and he asked residents not to disturb any of the research equipment if they come across it.
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