Who lives in Wood Buffalo National Park. What is Wood Buffalo famous for? Wood Buffalo - natural features

Wood Buffalo is a national park in the provinces of Alberta and Northwest Territories, Canada. Founded in 1983. It is Canada's largest national park, covering an area of ​​44,807 km2. Within the boundaries of the park there are wooded plateaus covered with scars. forest fires, a plateau eroded by glaciers, a significant freshwater delta formed by three largest rivers, salt flats and best samples karst terrain of North America. It also includes the most extensive North America pristine grass and sedge prairies creating best conditions bison habitat. The park has a long tradition of using natural livelihoods. It was inhabited more recently, as the glaciers receded, by nomadic groups of Mikesu-Cree First Nations, some of whom continue to hunt, snare and fish here. The climate is characterized by one of the longest and coldest winters and short, warm summer, reservoirs are ice-free only in June, July and August.

Among the 47 species of mammals found here are caribou, arctic fox, black bear, moose, beaver and muskrat, and 227 species of birds have been recorded, including falcon, bald eagle, great gray owl And polar owl. The reserve is also known for the fact that its territory is home to the largest
wild herd of American bison (about 2,500 heads). The whooping crane population is approximately 140 individuals, of which 40 pairs are breeding. It is amazing beautiful bird, snow-white, 1.5 m in height, wingspan - 2.6 m. Twice a year these fabulous birds overcome full of dangers a 4,300 km journey to winter quarters in Texas. Back in 1941, there were only 15 whooping cranes left. There are 36 sites intended for camping on the camp territory. Several of them are located on Pine Lake (60 km from Fort Smith), the most extensive is Kettle Point Group Camp, it is intended for large groups tourists. A place at this campsite must be reserved in advance. If you need to organize overnight parking in the park, you must obtain permission from the Wood Buffalo administration.
Wood Buffalo is open to the public all year round, each season has its own charms. The park has many hiking trails of varying lengths and complexity, from very short walking trails to long and complex ones.
Almost any trail allows you to see the indescribable beauty around you. surrounding nature. Since wild animals behave very carefully in nature, the likelihood of encountering them during a walk is very small, but from a distance you can see a lot of interesting things. The park is interesting not only for travelers, but also for serious wildlife researchers. Thus, in Wood Buffalo Park, in its southern part, the world's longest beaver dam was discovered, its length is about 850 meters (usually 10-100 meters). A lot of interesting materials on the development of the region and the protection of the region’s wildlife can be seen in the collection of the Fort Smith Museum. In Fort Smith, you can rent a boat or canoe and take the Wood Buffalo Waterway to Fort Fitzgerald, Fort McMurray, Fort Chipuyani. On large rivers such as the Athabasca River, Quatre Forces River, Peace River, Slave River, motor boats are allowed.

Information

• A country: Canada

Source. planetofdream.com

The wonder of Canadian nature is Wood Buffalo National Park. Read what Wood Buffalo is famous for in today's article.

What is Wood Buffalo famous for?

National Park Canadian lands, stretching from Alberta to the Northwest Territories of Canada, Wood Buffalo founded in 1922. Today Wood Buffalo is the largest park in Canada and one of the largest national parks in the world.

• The area of ​​Wood Buffalo Park in Canada is about 4.4 million hectares.

A visit to Wood Buffalo should definitely be on your list of places to see and die, as is Yellowstone National Park in the USA . Through the expanses of the magnificent, large-scale natural complex bison of the steppe and forest species- the last representatives on the planet. Wood Buffalo is famous as one of the world heritage sites, included by UNESCO in 1983.

History of Wood Buffalo National Park

The national park was opened in 1922 to preserve the shaggy bison population.. At the time of the creation of the park, there were up to 2,500 animals, but by 1960 the population had increased to 10 thousand. After 1983, Wood Buffalo Park lives on active tourism and patronage programs.

Location

Wood Buffalo stretches across the northwestern part of the country, between Lake Athabesca and Great Slave Lake. The administrative location of the park lies in the vicinity of Alberta and Mackenzie. Basically, the entire territory of Wood Buffalo is forested land, in some places swampy plains, rivers, clear blue Lakes and tundra groups of trees.

• In Wood Buffalo Park, the inland delta of the Athabasca and Peace Rivers formed, which flow into Lake Athabesca - it is one of the largest inland deltas in the world.

You can get to Wood Buffalo from Fort Smith or Fort Chipuyan. First you need to fly to Edmonton in Canada, then choose to get to the proposed cities. From Fort Smith you can easily get to the park along the McKenzie Highway, but for fans of air travel, the road from Fort Chipuyan will be more pleasant - there is no highway here.

Wood Buffalo Park is a huge area without roads. For hiking and returning to wildlife proposed sightseeing tours, the implementation of which must be agreed upon in advance with management. Everyone who arrives at the park is registered, then he is offered a route and a guide. Hiking trails are conditional markings. Most of the territories are inhabited by predators - lynxes and wolves.

• What animals can you find: caribou, white-tailed deer, bison, musk rat, bear, moose, porcupine, skunk, crane, lynx, wolf, etc.

Although the possibility of meeting them is minimal, it is still necessary to be on the safe side. Wood Buffalo - for real "lungs of Canada" Huge territories coniferous forests maintain a cool climate at any time of the year. You can enjoy the echoes of primeval nature at the camping sites. Wood Buffalo Park is a great place to visit with family or friends. It works all year round and pleases with its non-static beauty - each new natural season leaves an indelible impression.

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Wood Buffalo is the largest national park in Canada, covering large territory than Switzerland. It spreads across the northeastern part of Alberta and goes deep into southern part Northwest Territories.

Wood Buffalo National Park is home to some of the last remaining free-ranging bison herds in the world, a nesting site for the endangered whooping crane, and has the world's largest beaver dams. Thanks to all this, he was listed World Heritage UNESCO.

Data

• Migration route. In the southern part of the park is one of the largest freshwater deltas in the world - the Peace Athabasca. All four North American migratory routes converge on the delta each spring and fall, and the last remaining flock of migratory whooping cranes nests in a remote corner of the taiga each summer.
• Protected area. In 1982, the International Union for Conservation of Nature designated Wood Buffalo National Park a protected area to protect the Peace-Athabasca Delta and the nesting grounds of the whooping crane. These two areas have been designated as Ramsar sites under the Ramsar Convention, which focuses on identifying and protecting critical habitat for migratory birds.
• Scenery. The park's diverse landscape includes boreal forests, salt flats, and various karst landforms. The boreal plains near Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories are the most accessible and popular within the park.
• Wild nature. Wood Buffalo is home to such elusive species as black bears, wolves, moose, foxes, beavers and sandhill cranes.
• River country. The Slave, Peace and Athabasca rivers flow through the park, providing excellent hiking and camping opportunities.

For those who have never been to Wood Buffalo, it’s hard to imagine all the splendor of this place. Wood Bison National Park, and this is how the name of the reserve is translated (Wood Buffalo National Park), located in northwestern Canada and covers a flat expanse of 44,807 square meters. km. It is the largest national park on the American continent, with a total length of 161 km from east to west and 283 km from north to south. Administratively, it is located in the Canadian provinces of the Northwest Territories and Alberta, geographically located between Great Slave Lake and Lake Athabasca.

A significant part of the national park is occupied by bodies of water - rivers, lakes, swamps. When visiting Wood Buffalo, you can see one of the largest and most beautiful inland deltas created by nature. It is formed by the Peace River and Athabasca River, the waters of which flow into Lake Athabasca. The park is dominated by plains, although towards the western side, adjacent to the Caribou Mountains, the terrain begins to change. Due to its proximity to the Pole, the protected lands have another attraction for tourists. In autumn and winter, visitors to the park have a unique opportunity to observe wonderful reflections of light in the sky - the northern lights.

Wood Buffalo's flora is rich and varied. Here there are mixed and coniferous forests, shrubs, woodlands typical of the tundra, meadow grasses and flowers, as well as typical herbaceous vegetation of wild prairies. All this combined with local climatic features– long, cold winters followed by warm ones short summer– creates favorable conditions for the habitat of numerous animals and birds.

American moose, several types of deer (white-tailed and black-tailed deer, reindeer caribou), hares, marmots, musk rats, porcupines, skunks and beavers are permanent residents of the national park. Interesting fact: On these lands, researchers recorded a beaver dam 850 m long., which is considered a world record (usually the length of such structures does not exceed 100 m). In addition to the fauna mentioned above, the park is home to American black bears and wapiti, wolves and lynxes, as well as over 200 species of birds. Among the birds Special attention Pelicans and white whooping cranes are attracted to the area, but the nesting sites of the latter are protected by environmentalists and are closed to tourists.

At the same time, as the name of the reserve suggests, The main inhabitants of Wood Buffalo are American bison, for the sake of preserving the population of which the park was created. These massive animals are somewhat reminiscent of the European bison, weighing about a ton (900 kg), their body reaches 2 m in height and 3 m in length. Biologists distinguish between forest and steppe subspecies of bison, both of which are represented in Wood Buffalo and largely thanks to the protection of this protected area still live on our planet. At the time of the creation of the national park (1922), the number of forest shaggy bison did not exceed one and a half thousand; now the herd reaches 2,500 animals and is recognized as the largest on the continent. The number of steppe bison is noticeably higher and crossed the 10 thousand mark back in the 1960s.

Unique nature Wood Buffalo became the reason for its inclusion in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which happened in 1983 and provoked a pilgrimage of tourists to these areas. Meanwhile getting to the national park is not so easy. First you need to take an air flight to the city of Edmonton (Canada), after which you can travel by car or charter flight (your choice) either to the city of Fort Smith (province of the Northwest Territories), or to settlement Fort Chipuyan (Alberta), which provide access to protected lands. Fort Smith, where Wood Buffalo Park is located, is accessible via the McKenzie Highway, while Fort Chipuyan, where the main office is located, is conveniently accessible. road does not exist, only air.

When planning a tourist trip, you need to take into account that there are practically no roads in Wood Buffalo. Only one created car route for excursions in the national park, while there are a huge number of rules for traveling by car, violation of which is punishable by hefty fines. There is a lot of compensation available walking routes for every taste. If desired, you can use short walking paths or choose complex and long hiking trails that require some experience in such hikes. The risk of close encounters with predators (lynxes, wolves) is minimal - they are naturally cautious and avoid human society.

In Canada, tourists are allowed to travel by water. big rivers. By renting a canoe or boat from Fort Smith, you can sail to Fort Chipuyan, Fort Fitzgerald, or Fort McMurray and enjoy the beautiful scenery of Wood Buffalo from a unique perspective.

Those wishing to explore natural attractions for several days have the opportunity to stay in cities neighboring the national park - Fort Smith, Yellowknife, Hay River and Fort Simpson. Locals We will be happy to rent out a house or room; hotel rooms and camping grounds are also available. The latter are at the disposal of the Wood Buffalo administration, which issues parking permits.

In conclusion, it should be noted that Wood Buffalo as a tourist attraction operates year-round and is beautiful in any season. Its visit will not leave indifferent anyone who is in love with nature and will give amazing impressions for a lifetime.

Wood Buffalo

Wood Buffalo National Park is the largest not only in Canada, but in all of America. The park was created in 1922, much later than famous parks Canada. It stretches in the north-west of the country, 283 kilometers from south to north and 161 kilometers from west to east. The total area of ​​the national park is about 4.5 million hectares. The territory of the park is coniferous and mixed forests, meadows, open plains, in places swampy plains and tundra open forests, numerous rivers and lakes. There are no roads, so Wood Buffalo serves as a safe haven for the only surviving herd of bison, for the preservation of which, in fact, the park was created. When Wood Buffalo was first created, there was only one herd of shaggy forest bison remaining, numbering 1,500 head. There is only one road for independent tourist excursions through the entire territory of the park, and travel conditions are strictly specified

The most interesting thing about the Wood Buffalo forests is the wood bison that has survived only here. From the high bank of the river, the sight of herds of these huge animals grazing in the valley makes an unforgettable impression. On the wide floodplains of the Peace and Athabasca Rivers, covered with rich water meadows, these ancient bulls find beautiful forest pastures. The abundance of turf and willow in the undergrowth of the poplar undergrowth, as well as the huge area of ​​sedge meadows, provides them with food in winter. The wood bison is, apparently, the original form that inhabited the vast expanses of Eurasia and America in the pre-glacial and glacial eras, the descendants of which were the ancestors of the steppe bison of America and the bison of Europe. Wood bison in northeastern Siberia went extinct just a few thousand years ago, but they survive here in northern Canada.

Wood Buffalo National Park, created in 1922, was given the main task of preserving wood bison, of which no more than one and a half thousand remained even then.

The Canadian bison reaches a height of about two meters, a length of up to three meters and weighs up to 900 kilograms. Bison were once found throughout the Great Plains of the United States and Canada. Now the distribution range of the steppe and forest varieties of bison is actually limited to the territory of Wood Buffalo Park.

During the European colonization of America, bison roamed the plains of the United States and Canada in large herds. At that time there were about 60 million of them. Indian tribes used them for food. Later, during the wars between the colonists and the Indians, bison were exterminated in such incredible numbers that by the end of the 19th century there were negligible numbers left. And they remained only thanks to the efforts of the New York Zoological Society.

In the second half of the 1920s, more than 6 thousand prairie bison were introduced into Wood Buffalo National Park. But this did not solve the problem: tuberculosis was introduced with new individuals, and free crossing of bison from two populations threatened the existence of the forest subspecies. Therefore, it was decided to maintain a purebred herd of wood bison in a secluded, isolated part of the national park. Thus, 18 animals were settled in a special reserve on the banks of the Mackenzie River. In addition, the habitat areas of forest and steppe bison were reliably divided.

Since 1925, bison as rare view protected by law. Therefore, its numbers are steadily growing. Thus, in 1950, 13 thousand steppe, forest and hybrid bison lived in Canada. This is the largest herd on the American continent. In 1959, the first 10 licenses for shooting bison in the vicinity of the park were already issued.

Wood Buffalo Park is an ideal place for bison: flooded sedge meadows, various shrubs and poplar undergrowth provide reliable food for the animal in summer and winter.

The park is also home to other wild animals: bears, lynxes, wolves. Quite a lot of moose and beavers, porcupines and skunks. There are more than 200 species of birds. The rarest species of white whooping cranes, of which there are only a few dozen left on earth. The dense wilds of the Wood Buffalo forest swamps are the only place where these huge birds, similar to our white cranes - the Siberian Crane, live in the tundra of Yakutia, nest. Whooping cranes also winter in one single place - in the marshy sea meadows of Texas. Previously, these cranes were more numerous and widespread, but due to the reduction of places suitable for their habitat and extermination by people in the past, these wonderful birds are now in danger of extinction.

It must be said that zoologists in Canada and the USA are doing everything possible to preserve birds. Their nesting and wintering areas are protected. During the migration of cranes, their migratory flocks are protected by following them on special planes. These efforts are bearing fruit, and last years the number of birds is growing. Recently, American zoologists began joint experiments on artificial incubation of eggs and raising chicks in Patuxent scientific center(USA). The necessary knowledge and skills for this were previously accumulated by raising chicks of the common sandhill crane in North America, and the operation itself of removing and transporting the eggs is carried out with great organization within a few days. One egg is taken from each nest; It is believed that this will not harm the breeding of birds in Wood Buffalo, since, although cranes lay two eggs, in the wild, as a rule, only one chick survives from each pair. There are now about twenty white cranes living in Patuxent and about fifty more in suburban conditions.

Many other interesting rare animals live in national park Wood Buffalo, including reindeer, black-tailed and white-tailed deer, bobcat, elk.

There is only one road for tourists through the vast territory of the park, along which excursions are allowed without the escort of park staff. There are specially designated places on this road where you can only stop. The park security has radio communications equipment, and patrol services are carried out by airplanes and helicopters.