Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada Photograph by Richard D. Huseth   Western North America: Western central Canada Temperate Coniferous Forests   15,400 square miles (39,800 square kilometers) -- about the size of Connecticut and Maryland combined Relatively Stable/Intact

· Big and Beautiful
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Big and Beautiful

As an observer in the Alberta Mountain Forests ecoregion, you couldn't help but feel small compared to the majestic sights that surround you. Against a backdrop of towering mountains and icy blue glaciers, the forests are teeming with large, magnificent animals. Thousands of elk, moose, bighorn sheep, and caribou graze while grizzly bears, cougars, and wolves hunt the abundant prey. Towering trees provide habitat for Townsend's warblers, veeries, and bald eagles. This ecoregion is one of the few places on Earth where you can still find an abundance of such magnificent creatures.

Special Features

The valleys of this ecoregion are marked by warm, dry summers and mild, snowy winters. But high on the cliffs and in the subalpine areas of the mountains, the summers are cool and showery and the winters are much colder. This is where you can find the largest ice field in the Rocky Mountains. Throughout the summer, runoff from glaciers and snow in the Rocky Mountains replenishes Alberta's river systems.

	Healthy aspen bark has a greenish tinge because of the chlorophyll in it. In winter, elk nibble this nutritious bark, leaving blackened scars that reach more than six feet (nearly two meters) from the ground--as far up as an elk can reach.

Wild Side

In mixed forests of lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce, and alpine fir, you can find an amazing variety of mammals, from pygmy shrews weighing a few grams to bull moose weighing more than 1,760 pounds (800 kg). Mountain goats climb nimbly up steep, rocky cliffs in search of tender young plants. In the fall, the woods fill with the noise of bugling bull elks attracting a harem. As elk and deer browse on twigs and leaves, predators such as cougars, wolves, and bears stalk the weakest members of the herds. With so many large animals present, it is easy to overlook smaller treasures like the Banff Springs snail, an inconspicuous little mollusk found in five hot springs in Banff National Park and nowhere else in the world.

Cause for Concern

While 80 percent of the Alberta Mountain Forests are intact, there is still some concern over the future of the ecoregion. The greatest threat today is in the valleys, where major outdoor recreation facilities and growing towns are attracting more and more people, with more and more cars, which need more and more roads. Not only does road construction destroy habitat, but the new roads are impeding the movement of large carnivores and other wildlife. On average, 70 elk die from collisions with cars or trains each year in Banff National Park, where some five million visitors travel every year. In some areas, coal mining is another growing threat.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.