AJM’s vegetation team gathered at Nose Hill Park for a hands-on field training session to enhance our botanical skills. As part of the session, we focused on identifying various species, including prairie rose, Kentucky bluegrass, and prairie crocus, using transects and study plots. These methods help us assess plant community health, a key component of our ongoing vegetation monitoring projects in boreal wetlands and rangelands.

During the session, we made an intriguing discovery: soapweed (Yucca glauca), a species federally listed under the Species at Risk Act (SARA), was growing in the park. Normally found in the southern reaches of Alberta, soapweed’s presence in Nose Hill Park was a surprising find!

For many, it can be difficult to visualize wetlands in grassland ecosystems or crop fields, especially when they appear dry for most of the year. However, wetlands play a critical role in managing floods and droughts by storing and gradually releasing water, filtering out nutrients and contaminants, and providing habitat for diverse species, including migratory birds, amphibians, and over 400 plant species in Alberta alone …

Curious about what happens when someone wants to access natural resources on their property—like digging a giant hole in the ground? That’s where we (AJM’s environmental experts) come in, armed with boots, binoculars, and laptops. In this article, we’ll walk you through a real-life project example where we conducted a Biophysical Impact Assessment for a landowner with a claypit mine on agricultural land in Alberta. Keep reading to learn how we approach these assessments and what they involve!