Nature Conservancy of Canada has acquired just under 1,600 hectares of new conservation land in Saskatchewan on the east side of Chaplin lake, which is part of a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network site. Spokesperson, Michael Burak, says Canada only has three of these Shorebird Reserve Network sites, with the other two on the East and West Coast. This one is unusual because it isn’t near the sea. Chaplin Lake is the second largest saline lake in Canada.

The area gets this designation because of the number of species of migratory shorebirds that will use the lake and adjacent land. Burak points to the sanderling, which is a small, wading bird which nests in the Arctic and uses the Chaplin Lake area as a stop off point on its way to and from as far away as South America. Some of the species at risk which can be found in the newly acquired conservation land are the chestnut-collared longspur, and the ferruginous hawk.

NCC now helps to conserve more than 198,000 hectares, or over 489,000 acres, of the province’s most ecologically significant land and water.