Wapusk National Park

Wapusk National Park is Canada's 37th national park, established in 1996. The park is located in the Hudson Plains ecozone, 45 km south of Churchill in north-east Manitoba, Canada, on the shores of Hudson Bay. Access to the park is limited due to its remote location and an effort to preserve the park. The name comes from the Cree word for polar bear (wâpask). The Park is also home to Cape Churchill, which is renowned as the best location in the world to view and photograph wild polar bears. The only way people can access Cape Churchill is by helicopter or Tundra Buggy.

Ecology

Wapusk is the Cree word for "white bear", and as the meaning indicates, the 11,475 km² park protects one of the world's largest known polar bear maternity denning areas. It includes a large part of the Hudson Bay Lowlands, a sub-arctic region bordering Hudson Bay that is mostly muskeg and wet peatlands. It is one of the wildest and most remote of Canadian landscapes.

Numerous birds are found in the Wapusk National Park including likely breeding area of the Short-billed Dowitcher. The Wapusk National Park is a significant maternity denning area for the Polar Bear, Ursus maritimus.

In a 2010 report biologists affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History and City College of the City University of New York have prepared a new report published in Canadian Field Naturalist that offers the first documented evidence the temperamental Grizzly Bears are migrating into polar bear territory. Researchers found that seven grizzlies have been spotted in Wapusk National Park south of Churchill, Manitoba, between 2003 and 2008.

Gallery

Line notes

See also

  • National Parks of Canada
  • List of National Parks of Canada
  • List of Manitoba parks

References

  • Jeffrey Vance Wells (2007) Birder's Conservation Handbook: 100 North American Birds at Risk, Princeton University Press, 452 pages ISBN 0691123233
  • C. Michael Hogan (2008) Polar Bear: Ursus maritimus, Globaltwitcher.com, ed. Nicklas Stromberg

External links

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