Mackenzie River Valley, NT, Canada Photograph by P. Ewins   Northern North America: Northwestern Canada Boreal Forests/Taiga   133,500 square miles (345,800 square kilometers) -- slightly smaller than Montana Relatively Stable/Intact

· Tough Taiga
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Tough Taiga

Taiga is the habitat just south of the arctic tundra. The short, cool summers and long, cold winters of the taiga make for harsh conditions to which both plants and animals have to adapt.

Special Features

This ecoregion's broad lowlands and plateaus are cut by major rivers such as the Mackenzie. Despite low precipitation, wetlands cover 25 to 50 percent of the ecoregion.

	The northern shrike has an unusual approach to mealtime. Lacking the talons of birds of prey, shrikes catch a meal in their beaks--perhaps an insect, rodent, or small bird--and impale it on a sharp object such as a tree thorn. They may then wedge it into a tree nook to eat later. Shrikes are declining worldwide, and pesticides are suspected as a major culprit.

Wild Side

The harsh taiga weather creates highly stunted forests of black spruce. Shrubs include dwarf birch, Labrador tea, and willow. And at ground level you'll find bearberry, mosses, and sedges. On hillsides, forests are made up of white and black spruce, lodgepole pine, tamarack, white birch, quaking aspen, and balsam poplar. Caribou migrate from the tundra in the fall and spend winters in this ecoregion. Other mammals found here include moose, bison, wolves, black bears, martens, lynx, and Arctic ground squirrels. The ecoregion is home to many birds, such as common redpolls, gray jays, common ravens, red-throated loons, northern shrikes, sharp-tailed grouse, fox sparrows, bald eagles, peregrine falcons, ospreys, and migrating waterfowl.

Cause for Concern

Approximately 90 percent of the habitat remains intact. Most of the habitat loss is from disturbance around small communities, seismic lines throughout the region, and small-scale logging. Mining, oil and gas development, and the associated exploration phases of these industries are serious threats, including the road building that accompanies these projects.

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