NUNAVUT
When one peregrine falcon, captured near Iglulik and equipped with a radio-transmitter, went missing in Ecuador over a year ago, University of Alberta researchers put the call out for the public's assistance finding and bringing the bird home. The mystery of the missing falcon has now been solved.
University of Alberta research assistant Alejandro César Bravo Grajeda lets fly a tagged peregrine falcon on the sea ice near Rankin Inlet last summer. The birds travel from the Arctic to wintering grounds in the neotropics. - photo courtesy of Laurent Nikolaiczuk |
"We found it - well, we sort of found it," said Barry Robinson, a PhD candidate with the U of A Arctic Raptor Project. Unfortunately for Robinson's team and the falcon, which went missing in November 2011, the search was about one year too late. A colleague who happened to be travelling in Ecuador reported back that a farmer had discovered the falcon in his rice field. "He found this falcon with a funny yellow thing and an antenna, which is our translator. Apparently his dog ate the bird."
Robinson, who works in the biological sciences wing of the Canadian Circumpolar Institute, said there are many falcons in Nunavut.
One component of his team's research is equipping falcons with GPS transmitters and tracking their migrations from around Rankin Inlet and Iglulik to their wintering grounds in Central and South America.
"We have data from many falcons travelling between Nunavut and the neotropics and some interesting stories of recovering missing falcons," he said.
Like the last falcon that was never recovered, Robinson said it is common for peregrines to turn up in strange places - some as far afield as the Grand Bahama Islands. "We had one falcon die next to this ritzy area where John Travolta has a mansion."
Another student, Alejandro Cesar Bravo Grajeda, who is applying to do his masters at the U of A, has been working with migratory birds for more than eight years in Mexico, the U.S. and now Canada's Arctic.
Last summer he spent three months in Rankin Inlet as part of Robinson's geo-locator project banding birds, counting prey, installing cameras in nesting places, retrieving pictures and collecting blood and feathers.
"This type of study can help us to understand how our environment is connected - how communities from the north to the south of our continent are connected with each other," said Bravo Grajeda. "Such idea of connection might help us to understand how the conservation efforts have to be developed in a global scale."
"I am really looking forward to going back. I love Nunavut. My first impression of Rankin was how pristine the area is, even though it's a big community."
