Some projects are under way, some are finished. Every one runs on private or Crown land with willing landowners, and every one publishes its survey data.
Active, phase 2 of 3
Chaplin Lake, south-central Saskatchewan
Chaplin Lake is a saline lake system and one of the largest shorebird staging areas in Canada. In this phase we are rehydrating five drained potholes beside the main lake, seeding native plants along the shoreline, and laying out fixed survey lines (transects) for breeding shorebirds.
Active
Qu'Appelle Valley, southern Saskatchewan
We are working with landowners in the Qu'Appelle Valley to join two existing conservation easements with a continuous strip of native grassland. It would be the first unbroken grassland corridor in the valley, and it would let burrowing owls, swift fox, and ground-nesting songbirds move through without crossing cropland.
Active
Big Muddy Valley, southern Saskatchewan
A three-year population survey of swift fox and burrowing owl in the Big Muddy Valley, one of the last strongholds for swift fox in Canada. When the survey ends, the data goes to COSEWIC, the federal committee that assesses species at risk, and to the recovery teams working under the Species at Risk Act.
Active
Assiniboia, south-central Saskatchewan
A multi-year effort to collect and catalogue seed from remnant native prairie around Assiniboia. Restoration only works with local ecotype seed, meaning seed from plants already adapted to the region. Commercial mixes bring in genetics suited to somewhere else.
Last Mountain Lake, south-central Saskatchewan. 2018 to 2022.
Restoration of degraded cropland around Canada's oldest bird sanctuary. The buffer now gives nesting and staging habitat to more than 90 bird species, several of them at risk. Monitoring continues each year under a separate long-term protocol.
Moose Jaw River watershed, southern Saskatchewan. Completed 2021.
A permanent conservation easement on intact native fescue prairie along the Moose Jaw River. The site holds one of the few verified populations in southern Saskatchewan of hairy prairie-clover, a threatened plant, and the easement protects it for good.
Willowbunch, south-central Saskatchewan. 2016 to 2019.
A three-year baseline survey of plant communities and vertebrates around Willowbunch. It laid out the GPS-marked transects and species protocols we still use, and it recorded 214 plant species and 67 vertebrate species.
A drained pothole, a stretch of native prairie you want kept as it is, or a quarter you are not sure what to do with: send Ben a note. There is no cost and no obligation.
Talk to our land team