IN THIS EMAIL:
- Learn about the wild pigs wreaking havoc as they spread across Canada - Discover how you can help migratory birds relying on city spaces to rest and recover - Listen to our latest Explore podcast episode about the Farmerettes and how they worked to keep Ontario's farms running during the Second World War - Looking for your next adventure? Learn more about Eagle-Eye Tours and their exciting trip through Patagonia with RCGS Ambassador Jenny Wong |
| | | Can we beat back the boar?
Wild pigs have been wreaking havoc as they spread across Canada. Is their expansion inevitable, or can we put the brakes on this “ecological trainwreck?” By Niki Wilson |
|
|
| | | Wild pigs are mating machines, churning out six to 16 piglets each year over two litters. Here, a captive wild boar feeds her piglets in Parc Omega, Que. (Photo: Jim Cumming) |
|
|
When Ramona Maraj took on the role of ecologist at Elk Island National Park, Alta., in 2018, wild pig capture was not part of the job. Yet five years later, in March 2023, she found herself fixing a GPS collar around the thick neck of a sedated 136-kilogram (300-pound) boar. Seeing a wild pig in real life is like “watching a unicorn pop out of a bush,” says Maraj. “They have a mythical look to them.” The tusks on this large male extended several inches from its dark snout towards its face, culminating in knife-sharp points. “When you see them, you understand how they do so much damage,” she explains. The pigs use their tusks for defending themselves, fighting, and digging up earth to uncover food. Combined with the push power of their leathery, rigid snouts, they can uproot meadows and cropland as effectively as a rototiller. Strong males like this one have been known to lift and roll heavy logs to get at insects crawling beneath. |
|
|
| A scarlet tanager perches on a branch while singing for a female on an early spring morning in Nova Scotia. (Photo: Jason Dain/Can Geo Photo Club) |
|
|
For better or worse, my home office window faces directly into the fanning branches of a great big, mature elm, the same species peppered throughout my urban Winnipeg neighbourhood. For better, because I can watch a seasonal procession of long-distance migratory birds every spring and fall just over the top of my computer screen. Each day brings a new complement of travellers, such as Canada or Tennessee Warblers singing and chasing down insects. For worse, because sometimes those very same birds appear during online meetings, and I have to sit on my hands and resist the urge to grab my binoculars. |
|
|
| Farmerettes pitching grain in Shelburne, Ont. 1945. (Courtesy Museum of Dufferin) |
|
|
They can’t fight if they don’t eat. That was the motto of the Farmerettes, the thousands of young women who took the place of male farmers and farmhands who had gone off to fight in the Second World War. While much has been written about the crucial role women played in factories during the war: building tanks, planes, munitions, and weapons of all kinds, the story of Canadian farms, the breadbaskets of the war effort, remains largely untold. In this episode of Explore, we’re going to rectify that by diving into the story of the Farmerettes, the mostly high school-aged women who kept Canadian farms running at a critical time. |
|
|
Canadian Geographic Adventures
|
|
|
| | Jump on board as we explore untamed Patagonia, where some of the world’s most picturesque landscapes are filled with abundant marine and terrestrial wildlife. Southern Chile and Argentina offer exceptional close-up viewing of coastal species such as southern right whales and elephant seals in the area around Peninsula Valdes, while further south one can find king, gentoo and magellanic penguins in the straits of Tierra del Fuego. |
|
|
As many species of penguins can be found here as one can hope to see on an average Antarctic journey, and even leopard seals are a possibility! Further inland, we find the best puma (or mountain lion) viewing on the planet. With the impressive Torres del Paine as towering backdrops, we’ll be guaranteed to observe and photograph guanacos, rheas, and condors roaming free in their natural settings, and with some patience, we hope to see puma up close. It’s springtime in Patagonia and all of the breeding birds will be showing their best. These include austral parakeet, Chilean flamingo, chocolate-vented tyrant, flightless steamer-duck and perhaps the endangered Magellanic plover. |
|
|
|
|
