New technology in Assiniboine Park unlocking mysteries of migration

With winter right around the corner, thousands of feathered friends are flying south. New technology in Assiniboine Park is helping researchers around the world unlock the mysteries of this migration.

Installed atop the park’s Qualico Family Centre next to the duck pond, an antenna is creating a clearer picture of what is flying overhead.

“I feel like a lot of people don't realize the amazing wildlife that flies overhead every night during the migration season. We have hundreds of species of birds and thousands of individuals travelling across Winnipeg right now,” said Laura Burns, the conservation program manager with the Assiniboine Park Conservancy.

“It's really hard to understand the movement of a bird from the Arctic to South America, for example, to track them individually.”

That’s where the park’s new antenna comes in.

It’s called the Motus Wildlife Tracking System – a global collaborative project mapping feathered flight paths across the western hemisphere.

Motus (meaning movement or motion in Latin) sees tiny trackers affixed to nearly 50,000 creatures including birds, bats and even butterflies.

More than 2,000 antenna towers have been set up in 34 different countries around the world tracking their movements.

The interactive wildlife tracking map is free for the public to use. 

Matt Gasner with the Nature Conservancy of Canada said Motus is making a difference when it comes to conservation for birds.

“We get a very good, detailed path of where they're moving throughout the year, and that helps us better understand and plan for conservation,” he said.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada currently has four Motus towers set up in Manitoba – a part of a small network in the province.

It comes amid a push to install these towers across North America as bird populations decline.

“Birds are not doing particularly well. Since the 1970s, we think we've lost about three billion birds, which is a very shocking number,” Burns told CTV News.

“We've seen steep declines because of habitat loss, window collisions, outdoor cats, collisions with cars.”

Burns said the more we can learn about the species flying right above our heads, the better we can help them.

“If we can understand how they use habitat and where they go, we can understand the areas that are important to them and how to protect them.”

More details about the Motus Wildlife Tracking System can be found online.