Endangered greater sage-grouse are getting help to boost their numbers with a new breeding facility.
The Calgary Zoo just opened the centre, the first of its kind for the species in Canada. There are fewer than 400 of the prairie birds in Canada and the zoo has been working on breeding and reintroducing the greater sage-grouse for three years, to eventually bolster the numbers living in the wild.
“I see the greater sage-grouse as an iconic part of our Canadian heritage, a key component of our prairie ecosystem,” said Dr. Axel Moehrenschlager, the zoo’s director of Conservation and Science.
The 31,000-square-foot facility, called the Snyder-Wilson Family Greater Sage-Grouse Pavilion, is housed in the zoo’s Devonian Wildlife Conservation Centre, southwest of the city near De Winton. Other at-risk animals there include whooping cranes, Vancouver Island Marmots and a small herd of Mongolian Przewalski’s horses.
The open-air sage grouse facility is planted with the bird’s natural habitat and has a screened roof. Cameras will allow researchers to monitor the 18 birds living there and work on improving egg incubation and survival rates.
Greater sage-grouse were once commonly found across the Canadian prairies and the northwestern United States but are now limited to about half of their historic range. It’s estimated that the population is only about 250 to 300 in Canada. The species declined so rapidly that the federal government declared an emergency order in 2013 to protect them.
