George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary is a protected area in Delta,

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

, and is part of the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annua ...

estuary, designated a site of Hemispheric Importance by the

Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) is a conservation strategy targeting shorebirds in the Americas launched in 1985. Its aim is to protect the nesting, breeding and staging habitats of migratory shorebirds. The first site t ...

. The area includes managed wetlands, marshes and dikes. The area has numerous walking trails, bird blinds, lookouts, and a gift shop. It has resident nesting sites for

sandhill crane The sandhill crane (''Antigone canadensis'') is a species of large crane of North America and extreme northeastern Siberia. The common name of this bird refers to habitat like that at the Platte River, on the edge of Nebraska's Sandhills on th ...

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same nich ...

mallard The mallard () or wild duck (''Anas platyrhynchos'') is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Arge ...

spotted towhee The spotted towhee (''Pipilo maculatus'') is a large New World sparrow. The taxonomy of the towhees has been debated in recent decades, and until 1995 this bird and the eastern towhee were considered a single species, the rufous-sided towhee. ...

s and many others. Migrants include, lesser snow geese, greater and

lesser yellowlegs The lesser yellowlegs (''Tringa flavipes'') is a medium-sized shorebird. It breeds in the boreal forest region of North America. Taxonomy The lesser yellowlegs was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in ...

, long-billed dowitchers, and western sandpipers. Over 250 species have so far been recorded in the sanctuary. The sanctuary is open year-round from 9 am to 4 pm local time.

History

George C. Reifel bought the sanctuary land in 1927 and originally used it as a working farm and family retreat. Reifel's son, George H. Reifel first leased the land to the British Columbia Waterfowl Society for use as a sanctuary in the 1960s. In 1972, the Reifel family "agreed to a combination of land sale and donation to the federal government on the condition that it would continue to be managed for the primary benefit of waterfowl and that the Sanctuary would continue to bear the name of George C. Reifel." The Alaksen National Wildlife Area, which was also part of the Reifel family land, was designated at an NWA in 1972 and is managed by the

Canadian Wildlife Service The Canadian Wildlife Service or CWS (french: Service canadien de la faune), is a Branch of the Department of the Environment ( Environment and Climate Change Canada), a department of the Government of Canada. November 1, 2012 marked the 65th an ...

References

External links

George C. Reifel Migratory Bird SanctuaryWestern Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network: Fraser River Estuary
{{British Columbia parks Protected areas of British Columbia Migratory Bird Sanctuaries of Canada Delta, British Columbia 1963 establishments in British Columbia Protected areas established in 1963

History

See also

References

External links