Northern Canada Scoter Survey 2017-2019

The Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) Northern Canada Scoter Survey used helicopters to survey breeding scoters in 5x5 km (25 km²) plots in six study areas across Northern Canada in the Northwest Territories (NT), Manitoba (MN) and Québec (QC) from 2017-2019. Populations of North American breeding scoters appeared to be in decline, albeit with a large degree of uncertainty around population size estimates and trends due to challenges related to surveying this group of sea ducks. The main goal of the survey was to address the major monitoring gap for scoters in Canada, as most traditional waterfowl surveys do not cover their breeding range or late nesting phenology. In addition to targeting three species of scoter, the survey targeted other sea duck species including scaup, mergansers and Long-tailed Ducks. Complete bilingual metadata including detailed survey design, protocols and data dictionaries is available in downloadable files. Note: A version of this dataset was published January 2025 (Record Name: Scoter Experimental Surveys, NT, MB, QC, 2017-2019 / Inventaires Expérimentaux de Macreuses, NT, MB, QC, 2017-2019, Identifier: 9cddead7-1dc8-4379-afc5-0275b7449bd5). This…

Publisher

Environment and Climate Change Canada

Resources

10

Catalogue metadata updated

2026-09-10