By Ed Struzik
EDMONTON — After nearly three decades of trying to save the peregrine falcon from disappearing on the Prairies, Alberta Fish and Wildlife biologist Gord Court and a handful of other biologists are wearing satisfied smiles. From one end of Alberta to the other, and from the eastern edge of the Prairies to the Rocky Mountains and beyond, peregrines are making a comeback to levels not seen for almost a half-century.
Last summer, when surveyors checked 158 of the 172 sites in which peregrines once nested in Alberta, they found that 68 of them were occupied — a startling comeback considering only one nesting pair remained in Alberta in 1970.
Even better was the news that two-thirds of these birds were nesting in natural cliff nests. The rest had set themselves up on bridges and on buildings in cities such as Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer.
The latest cause for celebration is the discovery this year that DDT in peregrine eggs is down to levels that are no longer harmful; the widely used pesticide once thinned the eggs to the point where chicks could not be successfully hatched.
“Forty years ago, it really looked like organochlorines such as DDT and DDE would spell the end of peregrine and many other birds of prey,” says Mr. Court, who expedited the analysis of the eggs at a lab in Edmonton.
Mr. Court is a big, barrel-chested man with a booming voice and a fearless demeanour. Over the years, he’s spent a lot of time hanging over the edge of steep sandstone cliffs and glass skyscrapers, slipping in or stealing eggs from peregrine falcon nests — all in the name of conserving a bird that was on the brink of extinction 40 years ago.
The peregrine-conservation story that Mr. Court never tires of telling begins with a bird named “Stud” — “a spectacular specimen,” he says, “easily recognized by his jet black head and wildly pugnacious disposition.”
“This bird single-handedly drove pairs of Prairie falcons off their eggs, dispossessing them of nesting cliffs,” Mr. Court says.
“His hunting forays were legendary. Stud handily took anything from migratory songbirds to local waterfowl. He was paired with several different females during the early 1970s and, as a talented hunter, helped produce several broods of young.”
Stud died in 1975.
“I think I was just finishing Grade 10 when I read the story in the paper,” said Mr. Court. “At the time, Stud was the last peregrine in Canada to have lived south of the boreal forest and east of the Rockies. It’s difficult to express the sense of doom that was felt back then when we heard that he had lost his mate.”
DDT had already been banned in North America by this time and emergency efforts to save the peregrine from extinction had begun with a government commitment to survey nest sites from coast to coast every five years.
In addition, young birds were taken from the few active nests that remained, and Fyfe, Armbruster and falconer Phil Trefry were given the resources to breed them in captivity at a facility at the Canadian Forces Base near Wainwright. Stud’s progeny from southern Alberta were among them.
“Those guys achieved the unthinkable,” Court says. “Against all odds, and a lot skepticism, they produced the first baby peregrines as early as 1975.”
Successful as those conservation efforts have been, they wouldn’t have gone nearly as well had help not come from unexpected quarters.
As some peregrines in the recovering population adopted man-made nesting structures, building managers at Edmonton’s Bell Tower, the Weber Centre, Inland Cement, the Telus Centres in Edmonton and Calgary, the Agrium Fertilizer plants in Fort Saskatchewan and Redwater and the universities of Alberta and Calgary gave Court and his colleagues permission to put up artificial nest boxes on their buildings and structures. So did CN and Trans Alta. Capital Power and ALS Environmental provided the money needed to analyze the eggs this year.
More recently, rural dwellers Larry and Mary Ann Law gave Mr. Court the go-ahead to establish a reintroduction site on land they own along the cliffs of the Pembina River near Entwistle.
Re-establishing peregrines on the cliffs of the Pembina is one of the most ambitious of the recent reintroduction efforts in which Mr. Court has been involved. Peregrines haven’t been seen at this site since 1964.
Mr. Court had long thought this would be a good place to reintroduce peregrines. But the opportunity didn’t present itself until TransAlta offered to provide the $25,000 needed to get things going. The company wanted to do something after the decommissioning of its power plant at Wabamun resulted in the loss of a nesting site.
Like other biologists, Court doesn’t normally name the birds he handles. Instead he uses a combination of letters and numbers to identify them. But sometimes the temptation gets the better of him and others. One female, for example, is sometimes referred to as “Miss Edmonton.” She has been in rehab twice after fights with other peregrines.
Then there’s “Tiny,” a diminutive bird that was eventually moved this summer to a site in Red Deer.
Among the most memorable birds was “Flying Scalpel,” a female that was so protective of her nest site that she beheaded another peregrine that tried to move in on her.
Last summer, when Court returned to the region to do the five-year survey with scientist Geoff Holroyd, he was heartened to see how many peregrines there were.
“ I first worked with peregrines in that part of the world in 1977,” he says. “Back then, peregrines in the region occupied only five territories. Last summer we found 40.”
The chicks that were introduced to the nest box on the Pembina River canyon did remarkably well. By the time they finally dispersed in late September, all but one was ready to make the long migration to Central and South America. The exception is a bird that was injured when it launched itself from the cliff site before it was able to fly. If its rehabilitation goes well, it will be released in the Lethbridge area in October.
“I never dreamed it would have gone as well as it did,” Mr. Court said the last time I checked in with him.
“Today, we have over 70 cities in North America boasting at least one pair of nesting peregrines. Here in Alberta, Edmonton has eight pairs, Calgary has three, and Red Deer two. Now we have to get more birds nesting in their natural habitat. It’ll be interesting to see if any of those chicks we released in the Pembina will come back and re-establish themselves there.
“All and all, though, we’re doing pretty well when you consider we had just a single pair nesting in Alberta in 1970.”