Conservation Blog

Photo credit: Steph Weizenbach

How Do UCP Environmental Policies Stack Up?

10 April 2023

BY RICHARD SCHNEIDER

One thing almost all Albertans will agree on is that it’s important to take good care of our environment, both for our own well-being and for the generations that will follow. So how are we doing on the environmental protection front? In this article we will review how past and present governments have sought to balance resource development with environmental protection.

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The Long and Winding Road to Caribou Recovery in Alberta

27 March 2023

Recorded Presentation
Speaker: Dr. Richard Schneider
Host: Nature Alberta

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Photo credit: Steph Weizenbach

The High Cost of Freedom

14 January 2023

BY RICHARD SCHNEIDER

Premier Danielle Smith’s sovereignty legislation has nothing to do with establishing Alberta’s “rightful” place in Confederation. It is simply a unilateral decision to ignore federal rules the premier doesn’t like. The flaw in Premier Smith’s reasoning is that the rules she is proposing to ignore are not Ottawa’s rules. They are Canadian rules. Most of them involve environmental protection, which is something Albertans value highly.

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Photo credit: Mark Bradley

Action for an Icon

13 January 2023

BY RICHARD SCHNEIDER

Why do Alberta’s Caribou Keep Declining, and What Can We Do About It?

Despite the woodland caribou’s high profile and the millions of dollars we’ve poured into research, the caribou’s story is one of progressive decline. Here, Richard explores the key challenges that make caribou conservation so difficult and provides an unvarnished perspective on what needs to change.

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Photo credit: Rick Price

The Recovery of Trumpeter Swans in Alberta

12 January 2023

BY NICK CARTER

Historically, trumpeter swans were found throughout Alberta. But by the early 1900s, the species was near extinction, mainly because of overhunting. Through concerted conservation efforts, the population is now well on its way to recovery – an amazing conservation success story.

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Photo credit: Susan Elliott

Citizen Scientists Come to the Aid of the Tenacious Franklin’s Ground Squirrel

11 January 2023

BY GILLIAN CHOW-FRASER AND RICHARD SCHNEIDER

In Alberta, the status of Franklin’s ground squirrel has still not been determined. The provincial government maintains that there is not enough information to say whether the population is stable or imperiled. In the spring of 2022, Nature Alberta initiated a citizen science project to help fill some of the data gaps. The results are presented here.

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Diminished Chorus: The Decline of Grassland Birds

3 October 2022

BY NANCY MAHONY

Few people are lucky enough to experience the dawn chorus on Alberta’s native grasslands — a bewildering concert of ringing trills, melodious gurgles, and jumbled songs. I’ve had the good fortune to do so on many May and June mornings, as a biologist researching grassland songbirds at one of Canada’s largest remaining native prairies, the Suffield National Wildlife Area near Medicine Hat.

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Wild Boars on the March

2 October 2022

Initially, wild boar numbers were low and they went largely unnoticed. However, their high reproductive rate is a recipe for exponential growth, which is exactly what has happened.

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Seeing Red Over Red Tape Reduction

5 September 2022

BY LORNE FITCH

Founded in political ideology, the provincial government’s current red tape reduction efforts have created a boondoggle of confusion, weakened protections, and, ironically, more red tape. The red tape being “reduced” hobbles land-use protection on public land, the land held in trust for Albertans.

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The Implications of Shifting Baselines on Nature Conservation

22 July 2022

BY LU CARBYN

Ecosystems change over time without any tampering by humankind. Human impacts, however, have caused massive changes over a short period of time that have resulted in serious environmental concerns, including loss of biodiversity.1 We are all aware of the global issues of habitat loss and wildlife extinction around the world, which call for intervention and leadership from governments, academics, and researchers. However, we do not need to look so far as the destruction of tropical forests of Brazil or Borneo; we can see these issues right here in Alberta.

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