Here’s are photos documenting some things I saw during my winter wildlife sweeps project in Alberta. In total, I did 28 days of sweeps through November to January.
Wildlife sweeps are done before an area begins development, to ensure there are no protected animals making dens in the area. If an active den or nest of a protected animal is found, a buffer zone is established for a certain period of time.
In these sweeps, we found a black bear hibernation den, active beaver lodges, an otter den, ravens, grouse, snowshoe hares, many different small birds, and squirrels. We also saw many undulate tracks.
We established buffers for bear dens, beaver lodges, and otter dens.
Jaron Wiigs 