Understanding habitat preferences of wood buffalo in northern Alberta
ApexRMS recently completed an incredible week-long trip to northern Alberta, hosted by the Fort McMurray Métis. The trip was held in support of a project on the Ronald Lake Buffalo Herd, focused on deepening the understanding of the relationship between the Ronald Lake Buffalo Herd and their habitat.
The Ronald Lake Buffalo Herd lives on lands just north of the Athabasca Oil Sands and is one of the last disease-free populations of wood buffalo (Bison bison athabascae) in Canada. With oil sand mining and other anthropogenic disturbances posing significant threats to this landscape, ApexRMS is collaborating with the Fort McMurray Métis and other experts to model buffalo habitat in this area and assess how human disturbances may impact the area over time.
During the trip, our team member, Alessandro Filazzola, worked closely with a team of Fort McMurray Métis members, as well as Gillian Donald (Donald Functional & Applied Ecology Inc.), Timothy David Clark (Willow Springs Strategic Solutions), Michael Wendlandt (InnoTech Alberta), and Darcy Pickard (Pickard Environmental), to collect data on landscape characteristics associated with buffalo presence. This primarily involved comparing spatial layers of land cover types, forest age, and soil moisture to observations in the field to assess the accuracy of our landscape model. This fieldwork was the result of years of hard work by the team to establish on-the-ground monitoring of the Ronald Lake Buffalo Herd population.
We are immensely grateful to the Fort McMurray Métis for their warm welcome and for hosting us on their territory. The insights gained during this visit are invaluable to fine-tuning the model of this landscape and to help quantify the impact of anthropogenic changes on buffalo habitat.
For more information on the Ronald Lake Buffalo Herd and their importance, and to learn more about the model, check out our project page at apexrms.com/buffalo-herd-habitat.