Parks Canada

This measure is based on snow-tracking data from 25 established snow-transects in the Bow Valley. Most transect occur within corridors around the Banff townsite, but several reference transects are located in the Broader Bow Valley. Trends for this metric focus on wary carnivores (cougar, lynx,...

Benthic macro-invertebrate diversity, stream hydrology, water chemistry, climate, geology, and landcover are collected at randomly selected sites using a standard protocol for the assessment of stream condition and are being monitored both at reference and impacted sites. The overall scope or aim...

Whitebark pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola) is an introduced pathogen affecting whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) and limber pine (Pinus flexilis). Whitebark pine is an endangered species protected under the Federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) and Limber pine is designated as an endangered...

The area burned by fire in Banff National Park between 1910 and 2017 is contained in this dataset. The number of hectares burned was calculated either by a GPS track of the fire perimeter (<200 hectares) or by remote sensing (>200 hectares). Measuring area burned allows Parks Canada to...

Banff National Park monitors invasive alien plants with the use of permanent, random stratified, transects established in each of the three management zones, in close proximity to vectors of spread (highways, trails, campgrounds, etc.). Percent cover of all detected non-native species is...

Banff National Park monitors invasive alien plants with the use of permanent, random stratified, belt transects established in the alpine. Occurrence frequency of all detected non-native species is recorded along a belt transect.

The objective of this project is to monitor the effectiveness of wildlife crossing structures along the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH) in Banff National Park and Hwy 93 south (93S) in Kootenay National Park. Specifically this monitoring includes the detection of large mammals (including carnivores,...

This is a backpack electrofishing based survey that enumerates all species caught a random selection of sites within a given watershed. Cascade, Panther and Spray watersheds were sampled in the fall of 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively. The purpose is to repeat these surveys every 10 years to...

This dataset shows the locations of westslope cutthroat trout of non-stocked pure strain populations with average DNA purity ≥ 0.99%. This species is listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act.

Banff National Park staff measured the condition of lake fish communities by the level of deviation of current fish presence in a lake from historic, pre-stocking fish presence.

Mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) annual aerial helicopter survey data for the area of Lake Louise, Banff between 2002 and 2017. The objective of these surveys, initiated in 2002, has been to monitor trends in relative abundance. The aerial survey transect runs from just northwest of Lake...

These data are water quality parameters sampled by Environment Canada via a Memorandom of Understanding. The individual parameters were used to calculate results for the Canadian Council of Environment Ministers (CCME) water quality index (WQI).

Rail- and vehicle-caused wildlife mortality and wildlife management destruction data for Banff National Park between the years 2005 and 2017. Each species mortality is recorded by date, location, count, age, gender, and cause. For more recent records please refer to “Human-wildlife coexistence...

Motion-detection cameras are a cost-effective and non-invasive tool used in Banff National Park for sampling mammal populations and estimating species occurrence. Occupancy modelling, which uses detection/non-detection data from cameras, provides a useful and flexible framework for population...

These data are counts of Banff Springs Snails from 7 thermal springs in Banff National Park. Counts are assumed to be a census as all snails at each springs were counted.

The beaver (Castor canadensis) is a large, primarily nocturnal semi-aquatic rodent used as an indicator of the conditions in freshwater ecosystems due to its role as a keystone species and an ecosystem engineer. The potential for beaver colonization within Kouchibouguac National Park is...

The Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) is a valuable multi-metric approach to assess the integrity of fish assemblages in aquatic ecosystems. The purpose of the estuarine IBI monitoring program at Kouchibouguac National Park is to use this index in order to evaluate the condition of selected rivers...

The Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network (CABIN) is a national aquatic biomonitoring program, established and maintained by Environment and Climate Change Canada, to provide a standardized protocol for the ecological assessment of freshwater ecosystems with the use of benthic macroinvertebrate...

Red-breasted mergansers (Mergus serrator) are colonial birds found on Tern Islands, a set of three small barrier islands separated by water at high tide located within Kouchibouguac National Park. These piscivorous sea ducks are indicators for the state of the breeding islands and associated...

At the establishment of Kouchibouguac National Park in 1969, remnants of past human history and intervention activities such as agriculture and wood harvesting since the mid-1880s have significantly influenced the Park’s current landscape. To this day, human-caused disturbance continues through...