Field Notes

AJM’s Fisheries Biologist, Hillary Keyes, recounts her recent adventures in Belize.

The past few years in the month of March, you would have found me on a frozen Alberta lake with a tiny rod, jigging for any of our resident trout species or yellow perch, sometimes with a tip-up baited for northern pike nearby. It’s the last real month of ice fishing before the ice breaks away, opening creeks and rivers that weave down our Eastern Slopes, marking the beginning of spring fly fishing season.

Grasslands are one of six natural regions defined by Alberta Environment and Parks, with the other five being the Foothills, Parkland, Boreal, Canadian Shield, and Rocky Mountain Natural Regions. Although grasslands may appear homogeneous or plain (pun intended), they are home to a variety of native grasses and flowers with pops of colour that would shock you!

It is winter here in Alberta, Canada and we are dreaming of warmer temperatures. To turn the thermostat up a few notches, AJM’s Biologist, John Rich, transports us to the remote beaches of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in this latest post about his past work with endangered Marine Turtles!

In case you missed it, here’s yet another cheesy Christmas letter from the AJM family to yours! We hope you all had a merry Christmas, are enjoying the rest of the holiday season and have a happy New Year!

Although you were trying to avoid yet another copy/paste \’Happy Holidays\’ email, we just couldn\’t help ourselves. We\’d like to invite you to sit back, relax, and try to decide if you should report this as \’email phishing\’ while we natter on about 2021…

Wetlands provide vital habitat for an abundance of aquatic and terrestrial species, including, migratory waterfowl (ducks, geese, and swans). Many of these important wetland ecosystems can be found nestled within the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in Canada, as well as North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Montana in the United States. So it almost doesn’t come as a surprise that the PPR provides suitable habitat for almost 50% of all North American migratory waterfowl populations to feed, breed, and stop-over during migration movements!