Dugout cleanouts on Prairie Pastures Conservation Area (PPCA)

The Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) uses grazing livestock to achieve its mission of scientifically driven conservation and environmental regulation in Canada while ensuring critical habitat is preserved and protected for Species at Risk, therefore, ongoing maintenance and cleaning of existing dugouts is required to support the grazing.

The Prairie Pastures Conservation Area (PPCA) has 325 sections (approximately 80,000 hectares). There are 220 dugouts located within it. CWS anticipates that there is a need to clean and/or maintain existing dugouts over a 15-year period.

The dugout sites are very remote and access is on low quality prairie trails (ungraded, approximately 12’ wide, undulating trails), and prairie grassland from trails to dugouts. Travel from main roads (graded gravel roads) to dugouts will be approximately 18 Km (combination of prairie trail and prairie grassland). The distance from Nashlyn Headquarters is a maximum of 36 Km Southwest of Nashlyn Headquarters and 70 Km Southeast of Nashlyn Headquarters.

The objective of this contract is to engage the services of a contractor with the resources (personnel, supervision, labour, equipment, tools, materials and supplies) to clean and maintain 75 dugouts (out of 220) over 5 years. The specific no. of dugouts will be identified on an annual basis which is dependent on current situation and priorities.