Yukon Boreal Bird Monitoring Program (BBMP) - ARU point counts

The Boreal Bird Monitoring Program (BBMP) - Yukon is a multi-species terrestrial bird monitoring program to support the Boreal Monitoring Strategy and conservation planning of terrestrial birds (landbirds, secretive waterbirds, shorebirds) in all boreal ecoregions in Yukon. 


Avian monitoring is limited both spatially and temporally within Canada’s boreal regions, especially in northern regions. As a result, the Canadian Wildlife Service has developed the BOSS, a national framework for the use of a standardized sampling design to monitor boreal landbirds in a cost-effective way. Between 2017 and 2023, autonomous recording units (hereafter “ARUs”) were deployed to conduct avian point counts using passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) methods across 16 Yukon ecoregions (Klondike Plateau, Yukon Plateau Central, Yukon Plateau North, Mackenzie Mountains, North Ogilvie Mountains, British-Richardson Mountains, Old Crow Flats, Old Crow Basin, Eagle Plains, Liard Basin, Pelly Mountains, Ruby Ranges, Selwyn Mountains, Yukon-Stikine Highlands, Yukon Southern Lakes, and St. Elias Mountains). . In 2019, additional ARUs were deployed in the Old Crow Basin for Grey-headed Chickadee monitoring. The ARUs were deployed by the migratory bird unit of CWS-NOR in Whitehorse, Yukon. The ARUs were set to record ambient sounds for 5 minutes every 15 minutes, from 10 PM to 9:00 AM. A subset of recordings was randomly selected from each ARU location for transcription to align with sampling suggestions outlined in Van Wilgenburg et al. (2020). From 2017 and 2019, this subset included recordings from the evening/nighttime (10 PM-3 AM) and dawn-chorus (3 AM-9 AM). In 2022 and 2023, this subset included recordings from the dawn-chorus only (3 AM-9 AM). Subset recordings were constrained to 3 minutes for transcription. Additional 10-minute ARU point counts were conducted and transcribed at various locations in 2022 and 2023 to supplement the 10-minute human point counts for these years. Bird songs, calls and non-vocal sounds were identified to species whenever possible. Incidental observations were included outside the 3 minute window (i.e. from 3-5 minutes). This project provides important baseline data to better understand species distribution and abundance in remote northern areas where the effects of climate changes are ongoing and human alterations of some of these ecosystems are anticipated. 


In 2017 and 2018, WildTrax was not available as a transcription platform. Upon collection of ARUs in 2017 and 2018, a subset of ARU recordings was transcribed manually in another platform and the data recorded in the ‘Yukon All Bird Database’. When WildTrax became available as a transcription platform, a second subset of ARU recordings from 2017 and 2018 were transcribed using WildTrax to supplement existing data. As a result, there are two data tables available for this dataset. The AllBirds records are available for download in the file ‘YT_BorealBirdMonitoringProgram_AllBirdDB_ARU_Data_Données.csv’. The transcription from WildTrax is available in the file ‘YT_BorealBirdMonitoringProgram_WildTrax_Data_Données.csv’.


This dataset contains data collected with ARU point counts. See the separate dataset record for BBMP human point counts conducted in 2017-2023.


More details are available in the metadata document available for download.


CWS-North DatasetID: 24_1

Organization: Environment and Climate Change Canada | Environnement et Changement climatique Canada