Species at Risk Act annual report for 2019: chapter 7

7. Monitoring

Monitoring of wildlife species provides the scientific foundation for all aspects of the species at risk program, from assessment and recovery planning, to implementing and evaluating conservation actions. For assessment, monitoring programs provide information on the distribution, abundance and population trends of species, which are key parameters in the COSEWIC assessment process.

Recovery planning depends upon data from monitoring programs to determine the current distribution and identify critical habitat for listed species at risk. Conservation actions accompanied by appropriate monitoring, allows the evaluation of their effectiveness and guides further actions through an adaptive management process.

ECCC manages or coordinates monitoring programs for all species of migratory birds in Canada, as well as selected other wildlife. The North American Breeding Bird Survey, which completed its 54th year of surveys in 2019, provides the foundation for monitoring the status of most species of landbirds across Canada and the USA. This survey, like many others in North America, depends upon thousands of skilled volunteers who can identify all the bird species in their area by sight and sound. Data from this survey have been instrumental in identifying major population declines in many species of birds. The State of Canada’s Birds 2019 report [PDF], which relied heavily upon this survey, identified grassland birds, shorebirds, and aerial insectivores (birds that feed on flying insects, like swifts, swallows and nightjars) as species in particular need of conservation concern. Several species in each group have been listed declines, while others are still being evaluated. Another 2019 report based on these monitoring programs, co-authored by ECCC scientists in conjunction with many colleagues from the USA, found that overall bird populations in the USA and Canada have declined by 30%, representing a net loss of about three billion breeding individuals. This suggests that the capacity of North America’s ecosystems to support wildlife has deteriorated significantly, highlighting a need for conservation action.

In 2019, ECCC biologists in Saskatchewan, the Yukon, and Newfoundland continued pilot surveys to develop a new sampling approach to monitor birds in the vast boreal forests that extend across northern Canada. These forests provide the breeding grounds for billions of birds, many of which migrate each year to Central and South America. These birds may be experiencing a range of threats from loss of habitat on their stopover or wintering areas to climate related impacts to their breeding grounds. Currently, most monitoring data for these species come from the southern edge of the forest, where there is road access, but population trends in these areas may differ from those in less disturbed areas. The ECCC sampling approach uses a sophisticated design to ensure spatial representativeness and obtain good coverage of all habitat types, while minimizing costs. Results to date indicate this is an effective sampling approach.

ECCC is also making increasing use of autonomous recording units (ARUs) to monitor bird populations. They can be attached to a tree or post and programmed to record bird sounds (as well as other wildlife) on a predetermined schedule. For example, by recording over multiple days, with recordings at peak times throughout the morning, it is possible to estimate detection probabilities and thus improve accuracy of surveys. They can also be programmed to record at dusk or at night, thus detecting species such as owls or nightjars with confidence. In remote areas which cannot be easily accessed during the breeding season, ARUs can be deployed in winter, using snowmobiles or winter roads to access sites, and then programmed to record repeatedly through the spring, summer and autumn, thus providing information not only on numbers of breeding birds, but also when they arrive and depart.

ECCC also continued investment in the Program for Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring (PRISM), a monitoring program which involves a combination of surveys on the Arctic breeding grounds, migration stopover sites and wintering areas, primarily in South America. The migration surveys, which have been in place since the early 1970s, are currently the main source of information on population trends for shorebirds, and have provided the data for concluding that many species are in serious decline. The Arctic PRISM surveys are particularly challenging to implement as they involve crews of typically four people working at a variety of remote arctic camps, using helicopters to access the sample plots. Over the course of about 20 years, finishing in 2018, ECCC biologists managed to complete a first round of surveys sampling all potentially suitable shorebird habitats across all of arctic Canada. These data are currently being analyzed to estimate the total breeding population size of each species, and to map their breeding distributions across the Arctic. Another round of repeat surveys was initiated in 2019 to start to determine how the abundance and distribution may be changing in the face of climate change and other threats. These data will be considered in conjunction with the migration trend data and other information to determine whether any species should be listed under SARA.

Breeding Bird Atlases are another important suite of monitoring programs that contribute to assessment and conservation of species at risk. These projects typically involve an intensive effort over about five years using a combination of skilled volunteers and professional staff to obtain detailed information on the distribution and abundance of birds across a region. Data are typically collected at the scale of 10 x 10 km squares based on a Universal Transverse Mercator grid, but precise locations are also recorded for colonial species and species of conservation concern, including SARA listed species. These data thus contribute to mapping of critical habitat and identifying areas to focus conservation actions. ECCC has worked in collaboration with the non-governmental organization Birds Canada, as well as many other partners, to deliver atlases in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, southern Quebec and the Maritimes. The southern Quebec atlas completed data collection in 2014, but marked a major milestone in 2019 with publication of the results in a book “Second Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Southern Québec”, which won the co-authors the award “Scientifique de l’année de Radio-Canada” (Radio-Canada’s Scientist of the Year). Ongoing work is continuing to produce an atlas of northern Quebec. A third year of data collection was completed in 2019 for the Saskatchewan atlas, obtaining data from the prairies in the south to the boreal forests in the north (in collaboration with the boreal project mentioned above). Plans are currently underway to initiate a new atlas in Newfoundland (starting in 2020) as well as the third breeding bird atlas in Ontario (starting in 2021).

Federal funding programs administered by ECCC and, in some cases, co-managed by the Department, DFO and Parks Canada (including the Habitat Stewardship Program, the Aboriginal Fund for Species at Risk and the Interdepartmental Recovery Fund), also support monitoring activities. Information from these initiatives, along with information from partner organizations and researchers, allows the tracking of progress towards meeting recovery goals.

DFO collects data on species at risk through scientific work, and supporting citizen science through its grants and contributions programs. DFO has heavily focused monitoring activities on marine mammal populations and distribution, with particular focus on the endangered Southern Resident killer Whales, North Atlantic Right Whales, and St. Lawrence Estuary Beluga.

In 2019, DFO advanced several areas of monitoring work including:

• Expanding the use of existing technologies and approaches to monitor and track whales in Canadian waters as well as developing, testing, and implementing new ones, for several purposes including to inform vessel slowdown and fisheries management measures
• Monitoring contaminants levels in whales and their prey
• Monitoring populations of North Atlantic Right Whale (Atlantic Canada), Bowhead Whale (Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Sea population), St. Lawrence Estuary Beluga Whale, Cumberland Sound Beluga Whale
• The distribution, movements and habitat use of Northern Bottlenose Whales on the Scotian Shelf
• Sea Otter distribution and abundance in the Pacific
• Recovery Potential Assessment – Grey Whale, Pacific Coast Feeding Group population, Western Pacific population
• Distribution, movements, and habitat use of Northern Bottlenose Whales on the Scotian Shelf

Parks Canada monitors various ecosystem indicators and species at risk in the places it administers. In 2019, the progress of activities in Parks Canada’s final multi-species action plans continues to be tracked in Parks Canada’s national ecological monitoring database system. The information obtained from monitoring activities and action plan targets is used to determine progress towards achieving both the population and distribution objectives and recovery measures, as outlined in the multi-species action plans.

In 2019, Parks Canada continued to track the distribution of the species found within the lands and waters it administers. This information contributes to the Wildlife Species reports, COSEWIC status reports, and the development of multi-species action plans.