Wildlife and GNWT Links
Check here for useful seasonal contacts.
Our Bird Species:
Four major flyways converge on the Mackenzie Valley and over 200 species of birds from all over North and South America can be spotted here in season, nesting and raising their chicks.
Some birds live here year round, notably the Raven, Ptarmigan, Snowy Owl, falcons, Gray Jay and Black-capped Chickadee.
The Northwest Territories is the summer home of the endangered whooping crane. These magnificent cranes, the largest birds in North America, migrate over 4000 km from wintering grounds in Texas to the Northwest Territories, where they nest and raise their young each summer. Their nesting grounds are protected and not available for visitors. Fort Smith’s Northern Lights Museum and Cultural centre offers some insight into the story of their recovery from near disappearance.
Other cranes are easy to spot - for example our sandhill cranes, which winter in New Mexico, are often visible beside our highways in the southern Northwest Territories, searching for food in drainage ditches.
