Québec Lowlands Survey

The Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) Québec Lowlands Survey (Suivi des basses-terres) uses helicopters to annually survey breeding waterfowl on square 2x2 km (4 km²) plots located in three lowland areas in Southern Québec (St. Lawrence, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and Abitibi-Temiscamingue) within the breeding range of early nesters such as the American Black Duck, Mallard, Canada Goose and Wood Duck. The main goal of the survey is to generate reliable indices for trends of all waterfowl species with similar breeding phenology nesting within the Québec lowlands, i.e. annual indices should provide estimates of the population with a coefficient of variation (CV) of 10%, and population trend should detect a 10% decline over a period of 5 years with 90% confidence. A more specific goal is to monitor relative trends of American Black Duck and Mallard, given their competition for habitat in this region of Québec.

Complete bilingual metadata including detailed survey design, protocols and data dictionaries is available in downloadable files.