Aerial Services for Northern Ontario Bird Surveys

BACKGROUND

The Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) conducts monitoring that provides information necessary for assessing and tracking migratory bird populations. Resulting data are used as inputs to analysis that produces information to support conservation and management decisions (e.g. relating to breeding bird status assessments, impact assessment). As part of that monitoring, the CWS-Ontario Region (CWS-OR) collects acoustic recordings and conducts site visits during the peak bird breeding season. Site visits must be conducted at specified locations, according to a survey design consisting of survey Plots distributed across northern Ontario. Survey Plots are beyond the provincial road network (Figure 1, found below) and survey projects therefore require helicopter-based transport of crews and remote fuel caches to support aerial operations.

Survey projects involve deployment of Autonomous Recording Units at sample sites within pre-determined Plots. A programmed schedule, which usually starts in April, enables each unit to obtain sound recordings of birds that used the site during the period the unit is deployed at the site. Recording units are retrieved weeks or months after deployment, and the recordings are interpreted to create data that document bird use of sites during the spring bird migration (April, May) and breeding (June, July) seasons. The CWS-OR may also include in-person bird counts to Plots as a method for documenting bird use of sites during the breeding season. Recorded and in-person surveys will be used by CWS-OR to create species-level data on the use of sampled sites by migrating and breeding birds and other acoustically-identifiable animals (e.g., frogs, toads, wolves).

LOCATION AND ACCESS FACTORS

Survey projects involve remote work to conduct bird surveys in pre-determined plots in northern Ontario. Survey crew transport from operations bases to and from Survey Plots will be conducted by helicopter. Bases of operations may be a remote camp or a northern Ontario town or community. Fuel supply will often be based on Fuel Caches at the base camp, may occasionally be through Fuel Caches located within the project’s area of operations, and/or bulk fuel locations associated with a northern Ontario town or community. 

During operations, survey crew members are dropped off as near as safely feasible to their designated survey site. Landing zones range from controlled airport locations through to unprepared locations in a wide variety of terrain types. Crew drop-off locations frequently include lake shorelines, shallow wetlands, wet muskeg, bog mats, and openings in tree-covered terrain. Landing and shut-down surfaces in unprepared locations range from open rock surfaces to hummocks in wet muskeg (or peatland).

DESCRIPTION OF SURVEY PROJECTS

The planned CWS-OR work consists of five (5) Projects over two years, visiting up to 100 survey Plots.

During 2022, CWS-OR plans to visit up to 60 survey Plots over 3 Projects:

• Project 2022-A will include deployment activities at Plots 1 through 30 , and will happen during March 2022; for bidding purposes, the Base of Operations will be Nakina Airport (CYQN).
• Project 2022-B will include deployment activities at Plots 31 through 60, and will happen during May-June 2022; for bidding purposes, the Base of Operations will be Landsdowne House Airport (CYLH).
• Project 2022-C will include retrieval activities at Plots 1 through 60, and will happen during September-October 2022; for bidding purposes the Bases of Operations will be Nakina Airport (CYQN) and Landsdowne House Airport (CYLH).

During 2023, CWS-OR plans to visit up to 40 survey Plots over 2 Projects:

• Project 2023-A will include deployment activities at Plots 61 through 100, and will happen during February-March 2023; for bidding purposes, the Base of Operations will be Kasabonika Airport (CYAQ).
• Project 2023-B will include retrieval activities at Plots 61 through 100, and will happen during September-October 2023; for bidding purposes, the Base of Operations will be Kasabonika Airport (CYAQ).