August 12, 2012 | Tips from Travellers >
Dawson Creek, Parks
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The BC Peace Region is full of a wide assortment of wonderful wildlife. Since we are situated in vast areas of open wilderness, wildlife is never far from your front door. A very common visitor to country gardens is deer. You will probably see these everywhere, especially in the early morning and at dawn. They are frequent residences of farmer’s fields which, when you travel through the North East BC Region, are generally right beside the road! These guys are the smaller cousin’s of moose and elk. In our area, we have two species of deer: white tail and mule deer. You can distinguish these two apart by the colour of their tails! White tails, as you can probably guess, have a white, fluffy tail where as mule deer have a black tipped tail. Mule deer are the most common out of the two kinds you’ll see here, but every now and then you will catch a glimpse of a fluffy white tail bouncing through a field!
Another common face you’re going to see in the BC Peace is the deer’s big cousin: the moose! The moose has become synonymous with Canada, and is one of our most recognizable wildlife visitors. Moose are large, awkward, and generally placid animals but they should not be confused as being friendly. Their funny faces and knobby knees make it seem like they would be great company, but in reality these guys are better left alone. It's always best to use caution when traveling early in the morning and the evening, as moose are more active on the roads around this time.
There are more than just moose and deer in this area though! There are brown bears, black bears, elusive cougars, lynx in the mountains and of course the infamous grizzly bear. If birding is more your thing, natural wetlands that litter the Peace Region country side attract a large variety of birds that are sure to peak your interest! From loons, to Canadian geese, to (my personal favourite) the friendly whiskey jacks (or grey jay/camp robber, etc). There are many different kinds of small mammals in our area as well! Such as the temperamental wolverine, sly weasel, and majestic flying squirrels! The squirrels obviously don’t have wings up here, but they do have extra flaps of skin that work like wings as they leap and glide from tree to tree.
The Peace Region offers a wide range of different wildlife that you are sure to encounter up here, what I’ve talked about is not even the tip of it all! There is such a large variety here to discover that I am sure you’re constantly going to be entertained by our region’s wonderful wild animal activity.