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RESPONDENT
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Gustav Samelius
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SITE NAME
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Karrak Lake, Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary, Nunavut, Canada
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| Contact details
(phone/fax//e-mail//address): |
| 306-975-5509/306-975-4089 // Gustaf.Samelius@EC.GC.CA; dana.kellett@ec.gc.ca // Canadian Wildlife Service, 115 Perimeter Road, Saskatoon SK, S7N 0X4, Canada
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PROJECT DETAILS |
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Start of survey:
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End
of survey: |
Team
size: |
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WEATHER
CONDITIONS
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Weather conditions: |
The spring snowmelt/runoff was a little late in arriving to the Queen Maud Gulf this year (5-10 days late) and resulted in the arrival and nest initiation dates of the Snow and Ross' geese being about 5 days later than the mean over the past 15 years. Weather conditions were predominantly cool throughout the summer, with a considerable amount of precipitation in the form of snow and rain, particularly during the incubation period. Snow melt was slow and ice remained on many lakes well into July. Weather during the brood rearing period was cool but with little precipitation, punctuated by a few days of temperatures in the high teens or low twenties (Celsius) whenever the persistent northerly flow was interrupted by a southerly one. In summary, runoff was later than normal, the summer was cooler than average.
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| Date of ice-break on
rivers: |
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| Date of final loss of
snow: |
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BIOTIC
CONDITIONS
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| Rodents abundance evaluation: |
low
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Breeding conditions:
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Abundance of arctic foxes varied among years and was 1.0, 2.3, 1.5, 1.8, and 0.67 foxes per 30 km travelled in 2000 to 2004, respectively. Fox abundance was twice as high in goose-nesting areas than in areas outside the influence of nesting geese in these years. The density of fox dens that had pups was closely related to small mammal abundance and was 1.5, 0.75, 0, 1, and 0.75 dens with pups per 25 square-kilometres in 2000 to 2004, respectively.
Nest success of both species of geese was among the lowest observed during the 15 years of study at Karrrak Lake, and this coupled with smaller than average clutch sizes contributed to poor production of young in the summer of 2004. A similar lack of success was observed in the Long-tail and King Eider ducks nesting at Karrak Lake despite a fairly high nesting effort. Herring and Glaucous gull nesting effort and success appeared to be quite high, perhaps contributing to the poor production of Long-tail Ducks and King Eiders. Nesting success of most birds was among the poorest observed during research activities at Karrak Lake over the past 10-15 years.
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Rodent dynamics:
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| Small mammal abundance was relatively low in 2004 with 1.0 captures per 100 trap-nights. Most captures were red-backed voles even though we captured some collared lemmings as well. Brown lemmings have been low since we started to monitor small mammal abundance in 1994 and we did not capture any brown lemmings in 2004.
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Rodent species recorded:
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| Latin | Abundance |
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| Dicrostonyx groenlandicus | rare |
| Clethrionomys rutilus | rare |
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Summary
of fauna studies: |
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