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The Parks / Yukon Territory / Vuntut National Park

The raven, willow ptarmigan and some gyrfalcon and owls remain in the park year- round. Migrating waterfowl, shorebirds and songbirds include tundra swans and Canada geese. Each year 500 000 birds use the flats as a breeding, staging and moulting refuge, making Old Crow Flats one of the world’s most important waterfowl habitats. A three year study of the

wetland habitats on the flats is now underway to determine why particular lakes are important to breeding and moulting waterfowl.

The Old Crow and surrounding areas provide an important fall, winter and spring habitat for the Porcupine caribou herd, whose range extends throughout northern Yukon and into Alaska. Estimated at about 160 000 animals, the herd travels from the Ogilvie Mountains in the south where they graze in the foothills in winter and during the spring and fall migration. In summer, they may be spotted either along the wind-exposed ridges of the eastern pediment slopes of the Richardson Mountains, seeking relief from the biting insects, or grazing on the vegetation in the valley below. Their calving grounds are on the coastal plain, their summer destination. Moose are abundant and muskoxen have been re- introduced on the open tundra. Grizzly bears have a large population in this region as do black bear and muskrat. Wolves, foxes, lynx, wolverines, polar bear and arctic and snowshoe hare are plentiful throughout the park.