Journal Article

Indigenous-led research shows impacts of industry on wildlife

Wilson, Niki

2021

Overview

Whitefish Lake First Nation (WLFN) is a Canadian Treaty 8 Nation of 3000 people living in northern Alberta. Although they have subsisted on the region's wildlife for millennia, they've been given little say in the approval or management of resource extraction projects within their traditional territory. Having observed changes to wildlife populations on their land, WLFN recently partnered with scientists at the University of Victoria (UVic) on a camera-trapping study to evaluate how different industrial features might account for these changes. Incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Western science methodologies into the study design, the team deployed 100 wildlife camera traps in 2018 and 2019 across traditional WLFN territory, most frequently capturing images of snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus), moose (Alces alces), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), black bear (Ursus americanus), wolf (Canis lupus), and coyote (Canis latrans). UVic scientists analyzed the dataset by applying several different models to see which natural and anthropogenic features best explained the distribution and relative abundance of mammal communities.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons, Inc,Ecological Society of America
• Subject: Alces alces / Anthropogenic factors / Bears / Cameras / Canis latrans / Canis lupus / DISPATCHES / Human influences / Indigenous peoples / Lepus americanus / Lynx canadensis / Marking and tracking techniques / Odocoileus virginianus / Project management / Relative abundance / Resource management / Scientists / Territory / Ursus americanus / Wildlife / Wildlife management