Protected Species
See also: List of Wildlife Species at RiskThe burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia hypugaea) is an endangered species.
They inhabit holes created by other animals such as Richardson's Ground Squirrel (gopher), prairie dog, fox, coyote, and badger. Their decline is due to habitat loss due to agricultural, residential and highway lands, and pesticide spraying. Another endangered species, the swift fox (Vulpes velox), has been bred in captivity and re-introduced into protected habitat areas. Lake sturgeon is a Species at Risk in the prairie provinces.
In 1691 the buffalo (bison bison) roamed the prairies by the thousands. "The Buffalo (were) so numerous (that the riders were) obliged to make them sheer out of our way." -Henday Bone beds have been uncovered showing mass kills of bison herds at the base of buffalo jumps and within wood and stone corrals. Habitat destruction from homesteaders breaking the land combined with hunting practices brought the huge population to near extinction. Similarly, vast flights of passenger pigeons (Ectopistes migratorius) were reported by Peter Fidler in the early 19th century. The sky darkened for hours as flocks of migrating pigeons passed. Forest habitat destruction and wholesale hunting brought the passenger pigeon to extinction. The eskimo curlew (Numenius borealis), a shorebird who was also seen historically in great numbers met a similar extinction due to changing habitats and diminishing numbers from hunting.
Associated with the irradication program of the prairie dog (gopher) in the 1930s was the dramatic decline in population of the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) which relied on the prairie dog as its main source of food. The lowered population was hastened as the natural habitat of the ferret was also being taken over by agricultural machinery and practices.
Read more about this topic: Fauna Of Saskatchewan
Famous quotes containing the words protected and/or species:
“Guns have metamorphosed into cameras in this earnest comedy, the ecology safari, because nature has ceased to be what it always had been—what people needed protection from. Now nature tamed, endangered, mortal—needs to be protected from people.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“If there is a species which is more maltreated than children, then it must be their toys, which they handle in an incredibly off-hand manner.... Toys are thus the end point in that long chain in which all the conditions of despotic high-handedness are in play which enchain beings one to another, from one species to another—cruel divinities to their sacrificial victims, from masters to slaves, from adults to children, and from children to their objects.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)