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Features

Pakowki Lake Features

Area

  • The Pakowki Lake Area of Concern, located in Alberta’s southeast corner just north of the Milk River, is approximately 1,550 km2. It is contiguous with two other AWA Areas of Concern: Milk River – Sage Creek and Cypress Hills.
  • The area is internationally significant for its shorebird and waterfowl habitat, and was designated an Important Bird Area in the early 2000s to identify it as a globally important conservation priority.
  • Pakowki Lake is listed by Bird Studies Canada and Bird Life International as globally significant for congregatory species and waterfowl concentrations and nationally significant for congregatory species and shorebird concentrations. The lake is a major stop on the western flyway.

 

 

Natural Region

  • Pakowki Lake lies within the Dry Mixedgrass Subregion of the Grassland Natural Region.
  • The Grassland Natural Region is the least protected of Alberta’s six natural regions: less than 1 percent of this natural region is protected.

 

Watershed

  • The only inflow channel into Pakowki Lake is Etzikom Coulee, which is an impressive glacial spillway channel. The lake is fed only by intermittent streams, and flows out only under extremely high water levels, when it flows south to the Milk River.
  • The striking channels of Etzikom Coulee, Pakowki (or Pendant d’Oreille) Coulee, and others of the region were carved by large rivers of glacial meltwater from the retreating continental glacier. Huge lakes of water were held between the ice-sheet and the higher lands to the west. With the glacier blocking the eastward flow of waters north of Cypress Hills, the waters of southern Alberta flowed southeast and south into the ancient Milk River, a much larger river then.
  • Pakowki Lake sits in a shallow dish of alkali substrate – a small amount of water therefore results in a large surface area. The surface area varies from year to year – in 1996 Pakowki Lake covered 109 km2. The lake is intermittent with a mean depth of 1.2 metres. “Pakowki” is a Blackfoot word meaning “bad water.”
  • Part of the lake is designated a Provincial Game Bird Sanctuary, which means that the hunting of game birds is prohibited except with a special permit.
  • Pakowki Lake is a significant area for the large numbers of waterfowl and shorebirds found there. The large lake includes extensive marshes and areas of open water.
  • The surrounding uplands are predominantly mixed-grass prairie.

 

Plants

  • Rare or uncommon species of plants on sand dunes and in wetlands include the sand nut-grass (Cyperus schweinitzii), annual skeletonweed (Lygodesmia rostrata), bur ragweed (Franseria acanthicarpa), nationally rare Great Basin downingia (Downingia laeta), and SARA-listed smooth narrow-leaved goosefoot (Chenopodium subglabrum – threatened) and Western spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis – threatened)

 

Invertebrates

  • The gold-edged gem (Schinia avemensis) is a small moth that is listed as endangered under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (April 2006). It is known from only two small populations in Canada and two in the United States.
  • Pakowki Lake is one of four sites in Alberta in which this species has been found. The Pakowki Lake colony is located on leased, provincially owned grazing land.
  • Habitat requirements are active dunes or blow-outs with populations of its sole larval host plant. Large-scale decline in active dune habitat over the past 100 years has likely resulted in a corresponding reduction in the moth. Habitat loss has occurred because of stabilization of active dunes by both native and introduced vegetation and by overgrazing of its larval host plant. This severely impacts small, isolated populations of the moth.
  • The closest population of the moth in the United States is about 1,200 km to the south in Colorado, so immigration of individuals into the Canadian population is not possible.

 

Birds

  • A diversity of marshbirds and colonial nesting birds such as gulls and terns
  • American white pelican and double-crested cormorant nesting colonies
  • Nesting area for rare species such as black-necked stilt and white-faced ibis and for SARA-listed species such as ferruginous hawk (threatened) and loggerhead shrike (endangered)
  • Rare or uncommon species such as western grebe, black-crowned night heron, Caspian tern, whimbrel, snowy egret, Eurasian wigeon and Forster’s tern
  • Sharp-tailed grouse
  • Endangered greater sage-grouse leks (dancing grounds)

 

Mammals and Reptiles

  • Key pronghorn habitat on eastern lake shore
  • Key deer habitat
  • Home to the rare plains hognose snake

 

 

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