Calgary and the communities around it continue to grow. New neighbourhoods, roads and other development are reshaping the landscape — creating new connections for people, but sometimes making movement more difficult for wildlife.
Roads and other development can divide natural areas and create barriers to wildlife movement. When those connections are disrupted, habitats can become increasingly fragmented.
So, as our region grows, an important question emerges: how can we make sure nature stays connected too?
A Calgary-based conservation organization is helping communities find an answer.
Connecting the Landscape
The Miistakis Institute is leading Nature’s Network, a multi-year initiative focused on ecological connectivity around Calgary.
Ecological connectivity describes the ability of wildlife to move through a landscape. Natural areas do not function as isolated islands: animals rely on connected habitats and corridors to move between different parts of the landscape.
Nature’s Network is working to identify where those important connections exist around Calgary.
The initiative combines wildlife monitoring with the development of terrestrial and aquatic ecological networks. Researchers are identifying core habitat areas that support wildlife movement, mapping places with high ecological connectivity value, defining wildlife corridors and locating areas where road mitigation could improve wildlife passage.
This work builds on years of local wildlife research. Between 2017 and 2022, Miistakis used motion-triggered cameras at 128 sites across 19 Calgary parks and ecological corridors.
The collected images helped researchers understand which species were present and how wildlife used different parts of Calgary’s natural landscape.
Turning Research into Planning
One of the most encouraging aspects of Nature’s Network is that the research is designed to influence real-world decisions.
Mapping an ecological corridor is useful, but protecting that connection often depends on what happens next: where development occurs, how it is designed and whether wildlife movement is considered during the planning process.
Miistakis is working with municipalities to translate ecological information into tools that can support land-use decisions and biodiversity conservation.
Rocky View County provides a strong local example.
As a key collaborator in Nature’s Network, the County worked with Miistakis to identify and map areas of high ecological connectivity within the municipality. According to Miistakis, this work directly informed the inclusion of an ecological network in Rocky View County’s updated Municipal Development Plan.
That means information about habitat and wildlife movement is becoming part of long-term municipal planning — alongside the many other considerations that shape how communities develop.
It is a practical example of environmental stewardship moving from research into policy.
What Wildlife-Friendly Growth Can Look Like
Protecting ecological connectivity does not necessarily mean stopping development. But it does mean considering how and where development happens.
Miistakis has developed mitigation guidelines to help reduce the impacts of development on ecological corridors. The first recommendation is to avoid development within a corridor where
possible. When that is not possible, the guidelines outline measures that can reduce impacts on wildlife movement.
Those measures include considering the location and footprint of development, reducing artificial lighting and using wildlife-friendly fencing.
Roads are another important part of the picture. Nature’s Network is identifying locations where mitigation could improve wildlife passage, while Miistakis guidance highlights crossing structures such as culverts, bridges and wildlife overpasses. Fencing can also be used to guide animals toward safer crossing points.
Together, these measures can help maintain the corridors wildlife uses to move through the landscape.
Keeping Nature Part of Calgary’s Future
For many Calgarians, access to nature is one of the things that makes this region special. Natural areas, river valleys, wetlands, parks and open landscapes are woven into the places where we live.
As Calgary and its neighbouring municipalities continue to evolve, conservation will depend not only on protecting individual natural spaces, but also on keeping those spaces connected. Calgary’s own planning framework recognizes ecological networks as an important part of maintaining biodiversity as the city develops.
Nature’s Network offers a positive example of what that can look like: researchers, municipalities and community organizations working together to understand wildlife movement and incorporate that knowledge into decisions about future growth.
The challenge is not necessarily to choose between growing communities and healthy ecosystems.
It is to plan carefully enough that both have room to thrive.
And sometimes, protecting nature starts simply by making sure it still has a way through.
Sources
1. Miistakis Institute. 2024–2025 Annual Report — Nature’s Network. https://www.rockies.ca/files/reports/MIR_2024-2025_AnnualReport.pdf
2. Miistakis Institute. Calgary Connect: Remote Camera Wildlife Monitoring Program — Five-Year Summary Report. https://rockies.ca/files/reports/CalgaryConnect_RemoteCameraWIldlifeMonitoringProgram_2023.pdf
3. Miistakis Institute. Development Mitigation Guidelines for Ecological Corridors. https://rockies.ca/files/reports/EC_Mitigation_Guidelines_Final.pdf
4. City of Calgary. The Calgary Plan / Ecological Network Planning.
https://www.calgary.ca/planning/city-building-program/city-building-program/the-calgary-plan.html
