Home Social Landscape Featured Articles The Aspen Parkland: A Biological Preserve

The Aspen Parkland: A Biological Perspective

by W. Bruce McGillivray

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Besides Farley, there is a relatively short list of naturalists who documented parkland habitats before they were modified so extensively. Bits and pieces can be gathered from the writings of egg collectors and naturalists such as Archibald Henderson, Tom Randall, Charles Horsbrugh, Evan Thompson, N.V. Fearnhough, Elsie Cassels and Norman Criddle. William Rowan, who began his career at the University of Alberta in 1920, made Beaverhill Lake an internationally known birding spot and worked to establish many of the bird conservation measures we have in place today. J. Dewey Soper provided details on mammal populations and wrote The Mammals of Alberta.⁵ To my knowledge, these works have never been summarized in an overview that discusses the effects of settlement on habitats and wildlife in the Parkland.

Ironically, despite massive loss of original parkland habitat after 1900, many animal populations are in far better shape than they were at the turn of the century. Magpies are back, thanks to cattle and urbanization. Ungulate populations are at all-time highs. However, there has been a change, as the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) has moved in from the east and south and supplanted the Mule Deer from much of its range. Elk and bison can be found, but usually in parks and game farms. With all the clearing of trees, white-tailed Jackrabbits (Lepus townsendii) moved north from the grasslands. Coyotes have thrived, as have red fox (Vulpes vulpes), particularly in the last decade. Our cities are a source of warmth and food and have disrupted the normal life history of many birds, including Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) and various ducks that overwinter. Various gulls, magpies, merlins (Falco columbarius), house sparrows (Passer domesticus), Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), cliff and barn swallows (Hirundo pyrrhonota and rustica), purple martins (Progne subis), Rock Doves (Columba livia), and Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata) nest, feed or overwinter near us, thanks to our buildings, feeders, gardens, and garbage.

The conundrum of wildlife and habitat (or ecosystem) conservation is that change does not affect all species equally. All too often, single species are used as evidence for or against the “value” of change. Ecosystem health cannot be measured by the success of single species. Healthy white-tailed deer populations do not mean healthy Aspen Parkland habitats. The debate has to be about what constitutes “real” Aspen Parkland. Is it what existed in 1830? 1900? 1950? 1994? What price are we willing to pay to create and maintain it? An important point in this debate, especially in a transition zone, is that change is natural. Droughts, fires, floods, temperature increases and glaciers change landscapes just as we do.

The value of preserving historical landscapes can be measured in biological terms such as biodiversity, gene polls and seed banks. The human cost of loss of biodiversity and genetic diversity is perhaps unknowable. We have no way of predicting final outcomes of incremental biological changes in the environment on societies. What about our personal loss? Does it matter that there is little land left that is as our ancestors discovered it? Surely, as much as our museums and archives tell us our sense of place, so too does the character of the land. Do we teach our children to recognize their land and distinguish it from other places? How is a sense of place born? Perhaps our memories cheat, and modified landscapes can serve as our land. Can a golf course fill the bill? Once the last patch of native fescue grasses in the Parkland is ploughed or the last slough drained, we may find out.

A final note on the preservation of habitats comes from Zolati and Vitt, who speculate on the impacts of warming on plant distributions.⁶ Given an atmospheric load of (carbon dioxide) that is twice present levels, the southern boundary of Alberta’s Aspen Parkland will be north of Edmonton. Therefore, in their model, in 100 years all of the former Aspen Parkland that graced central Alberta will have been replaced as grass. What then becomes of our “place”? Life in a transition zone is really life on the edge. A few degrees of temperature change or a consistent change in moisture levels and our environment is threatened. This north-south, wet-dry or hot-cold tension may be the defining characteristic of Aspen Parkland life. Does it shape the people? I do not know, but I will bet the folks in Calgary have a different view than I do in Edmonton.

The immense flocks of Passenger Pigeons that once darkened the air
were one of the wonders of America. The descriptions of their
number, if they were not circumstantial and well vouched
for by men of undoubted veracity, would sound like wild stretches of
the imagination; flocks, so dense that haphazard shots into them
would bring down numbers, travelled rapidly with a front miles
in width and so long that it took hours to pass a given point.
- Percy A. Taverner, Birds of Western Canada, 1926

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From: Aspenland 1998 — Local Knowledge and Sense of Place
Edited by: David J. Goa and David Ridley
Published by: The Central Alberta Regional Museums Network (CARMN) with the assistance of the Provincial Museum of Alberta and the Red Deer and District Museum.