Project studies how wildlife adapts to urban life in Regina with trail cam recordings, microphones

Amber Pirie spotted this bald eagle along Wascana Lake near Pine Island. (Submitted by Amber Pirie)

The Royal Saskatchewan Museum says it has been monitoring wildlife in and around the city of Regina as a part of a new study.

Twenty-eight biodiversity monitoring stations have been set up over the last three years with motion-triggered trail cams and automated microphones.

The museum says the effort will help researchers understand how wildlife responds to the increasing urbanization of wildlife habitats, while also offering a better understanding of how wildlife interacts with urban spaces.

Some of the spaces set for monitoring include the Habitat Conservation Area in Wascana Park, A.E. Wilson Park and the old Craig Golf Course.

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The monitoring stations will be active for one-month periods during the spring, summer, fall and winter.

“Urban centres like Regina can provide valuable habitat for the conservation and management of wildlife,” RSM Curator of Vertebrate Zoology Ryan Fisher said in a news release. “This research helps us understand how different levels of urban development influence wildlife. So far, we detected 143 different bird species and 15 mammal species.”

As expected, the American Robin and Canada Goose were the most recorded birds. The White-tailed jackrabbit and Richardson’s Ground Squirrel were the most common mammals seen.

The most unexpected recording of a mammal was an American Mink, well known residents of Regina but rarely seen, the release said. A couple of moose were also detected near the Wascana Country Club and SaskPolytech.

Recordings also picked up the Yellow Rail bird near the Wascana Country Club and a Black-billed Cuckoo recorded near the Science Centre, which the province says is an extremely rare sighting in Regina.

The project first began in 2021.

-With files from The Canadian Press