Hay River, south of Great Slave Lake, NT, Canada Photograph by Elaine Tucker   Northern North America: Central Canada Boreal Forests/Taiga   101,300 square miles (262,300 square kilometers) -- about the size of Colorado Relatively Stable/Intact

· Migrating Mammals
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Migrating Mammals

Imagine witnessing thousands of caribou passing as you crouch behind a white spruce. Each year, large herds of caribou migrate through this ecoregion, which is home to one of North America's most diverse and intact concentrations of large mammals. Many large predators follow these herds, including wolves and brown bears. This ecoregion has so many large animals, both in species and individuals, that it has been called the "Serengeti of the Far North," after the famed plains of Africa.

Special Features

This ecoregion gets its name from the very large Slave Lake in the south central Northwest Territories. Wetlands and bogs cover 25 to 50 percent of the land of this ecoregion and provide habitat for many species of waterfowl.

	Wood Buffalo National Park is located in this ecoregion. Wood Buffalo, although considered the same species as plains buffalo are slightly different being smaller and living in forested areas instead of prairies. Both species have thick, shaggy coats that are a good defense against very cold winters.

Wild Side

Quaking aspen, white spruce, balsam fir, black spruce, and balsam poplar make up the forests here. They are home to moose, lynx, grizzly and black bears, wolves, deer, and elk. Snowshoe hares and grouse also live in this ecoregion.

Cause for Concern

Approximately 75 percent of this ecoregion is intact. But at intervals of every four miles (10 kilometers) in parts of the region, seismic lines (for mining surveys) have been cut through the landscape. Logging is on the rise and poses the largest current and future threat. Pipeline transportation corridors are contributing to habitat fragmentation.

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