COCHRANE, Alta. – There aren’t too many places where people can have a close and friendly encounter with a moose.
But at the ecological institute here visitors may feel the nuzzle of a moose or a curious poke in the leg from a mule deer when they walk into the animal enclosures.
The institute, located north of Cochrane, which is about 40 kilometres west of Calgary, is best known for its swift fox recovery program, but it is also an environmental education centre and hospital for orphaned and injured wild animals.
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Some of the animals never leave the reserve run by Clio Smeeton and a group of technicians and volunteers.
Injuries may have left the animals with vision or flying problems or in the case of Moses the Moose, who was bottle fed, he is too friendly with people to survive on his own in the wild.
Right now the centre is home to a golden eagle, a hawk, two owls, a moose, a mule deer and some elk on 160 acres of natural pasture.
“Our aim is to let everything go,” said Marcia Johnson, special events co-ordinator at the centre.
The centre has arrangements with a Calgary emergency veterinarian clinic to take injured or orphaned animals and nurse them until they can be released into the wild.
It costs just under $50,000 to run the swift fox recovery program, which covers the expense of a wildlife technician, animal food and vet bills. Most of the money comes from fund-raisers and donations.
The Smeeton family started the recovery program in the early 1970s when a breeding pair of foxes was brought to Canada from the United States. Since then, the institute has released about 840 foxes into the wild. They have gone to Saskatchewan and the Blackfoot reservation along Glacier Park in northern Montana.
An endangered species, no swift foxes have been released in Alberta since 1995.
The animals mate for life and in captivity stop breeding at about eight years of age but can live to about 14.
Tracked with tattoos
To track the foxes in the wild, all are tattooed. The centre tried radio collars, but five of 20 had problems and since the foxes are about the size of a house cat, many couldn’t carry the heavy collars, said Smeeton.
Another way to track foxes is through voice identification. The foxes have distinctive calls, which have been recorded. A boom box plays the recordings in breeding season from February to April so technicians can lure the animals to a designated spot and count them.
However, most methods are not effective in measuring populations and the progress of the released foxes, said Smeeton.
The centre also offers a conservation education component.
Junior forest wardens have helped build A-frame shelters and nesting boxes for wildlife and various corporations have donated time to the centre to build special housing for raptors or cages for smaller animals.
The centre is one of five biological field stations in Canada.
Other programs include one which collected blood from foxes to set up a DNA identification program. Others have conducted behavioral studies on captive animals released into the wild to measure their survival rate.
