2011/12/01

Porcupine caribous in Ivvavik National Park

First, some things that I did on the days that I did not write a post. On Saturday (11/26), I went to a show where bands Bruce Peninsula and Snowblink were playing. It was awesome - very entertaining and great music! On Sunday, I went to one of my supervisor's end-of-year party. And then back to school once again.

Sometimes after working on my assignment about my thesis project, I take a break by watching the latest documentary by BBC called Frozen Planet. It's very relevant to me because it is about the polar regions and some of the scenery from the Arctic reminds me of my summer. The episode I am watching now is titled "Autumn" and one of the segments is about the fall caribou migration in north Canada (I watched this episode from this uploaded video because I am not in UK).

This reminded me of June 13, a day when an astonishing number of caribous moved on the hills on the other side of the Firth River. It was definitely one of the most memorable wildlife moments in my life.

People watching from a comfortable distance.

Caribous dotting the hills
The white dots among the trees are individual caribous.

Porcupine caribou herd in Ivvavik
Zooming in.

Porcupine caribou herd in Ivvavik

Porcupine caribou
Then there was a group that ended up on our side of the Firth River and the only thing between us humans and them was Sheep Creek!

Porcupine caribou
They were probably less than 20-m away from us (on the other side of the creek).

Porcupine caribou
Then one led them down to the creek.

Porcupine caribou
Unsure of what to do.

Porcupine caribou (Rangifer tarandus granti)
One lone cow.

In the end, the group went back to where they came from and disappeared. It was an amazing day!

Note: For most parts of the Firth River, the flow is too powerful for the caribous to swim across.

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Peter said...
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