Watch for bison collaring on Highway 5 this week

Drivers on Highway 5 to and from Fort Smith can expect to see a bison collaring operation by the roadside in Wood Buffalo National Park this week.

The highway, which forms the only year-round road in and out of Fort Smith, passes through a section of the park.

Bison strolling along the road are a common sight.

In a news release late last week, Parks Canada and the NWT government said staff would be working from February 16-21 to collar wood bison by the side of the highway, which offers the “most efficient and controlled opportunity to handle them.”

The aim is to collar up to 20 female adult wood bison.

The collars will give wildlife managers GPS data that can help them identify the animals’ critical habitat, understand how the herd is moving, and see where the bison – which are listed as a threatened species – are distributed in the park.

“This information will help inform management decisions, including actions to prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis and bovine brucellosis, both of which are threats to wood bison recovery,” the governments stated. (Work is also ongoing to find vaccines that can help protect bison from those diseases.)

The governments said the data “will also provide important movement and distribution data regarding how wood bison are reacting to the 2023 wildfires in the South Slave region.”

Other studies taking place include a multi-year project to understand how the red-sided garter snakes that live near Fort Smith are surviving the aftermath of those fires, which rolled through vast areas of the national park.

If you pass a bison collaring team this week, reduce your speed and yield to other vehicles, wildlife or people at work, the governments requested.

“We ask that people do not stop along the highway in areas where collaring is occurring to provide our teams with plenty of space to work safely and to minimize disturbances for the bison,” the news release added.