Amy Lacey (she/her), Master of Science (MSc) in Biology (Water) student
The whooping crane is the tallest bird in North America and is named for its distinctive “whooping” calls that can carry for several kilometres. Yet, you have likely never seen or heard one before as fewer than 600 of these birds remain in the wild.
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The threats to these majestic cranes are loss of habitat quality, lack of food, and collisions with human-made infrastructure while migrating. Amy Lacey’s research focuses on the endangered bird’s habitat, specifically a remote wetland in the Northwest Territories called the Whooping Crane Nesting Region. Found in the nesting region are shallow ponds with many varieties of aquatic plants like cattail, bulrush, sedges, and musk-grass. Northern shallow-water wetland ecosystems like this are among the most vulnerable habitats, with experts warning that climate change will exert its strongest effects on these hydrological systems.
Mercury and other heavy metals released from industrial sources like mining and pyrogenic sources like forest fires, can travel long distances via the atmosphere before depositing in ecosystems far from the original source. Contaminants can be persistent in aquatic environments and can bioaccumulate up the food chain. These nesting ponds have not been studied extensively and the risk of mercury and heavy metals to the cranes is unknown.
Whooping crane standing in tall grass. Source: Unsplash
Through her research as a Master of Science in Biology (Water) student at the University of Waterloo, Lacey’s collection of sediment cores and surface sediment from the ponds will contribute to establishing baselines that represent the natural range of variation of pollutant metals in the region prior to human disturbance. These baselines will be used to analyze and assess the degree of metal enrichment over space and time. While whooping cranes are endangered, there is hope. When the species was first listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1967, only 50 birds remained. Thanks to extensive conservation efforts and the important research of conservation biologists, the population of whooping cranes has been steadily increasing each year.
To learn more, please visit the original article Science that matters: Master’s student researches the potential contamination of endangered species’ nesting ponds by Alyana Versolatto on Waterloo Science News.