Grant: Engage Grants Program

Hydropower is a common and renewable energy resource used throughout Canada. Whereas large generatingstations typically exist in Canada's hinterlands, the electricity needs to be transmitted to the communities thatconsume the majority of power. To do so transmission right-of-ways are constructed through the wildernessand may affect the wildlife and rural and indigenous communities that rely upon the wildlife for sustenance,cultural, and spiritual practices. Understanding how right-of-ways affect behavior in keystone predators, suchas wolves, will help us disentangle the effects of these low-density anthropogenic feature on the ecology,particularly for predator (wolves) and prey (moose) population dynamics. This project is important to ourindustrial partner, Manitoba Hydro, with knock-on effects for other hydropower generating and transmittingcompanies across Canada (e.g., Ontario HydroOne, Nal Cor Energy). The project also has value to rural andindigenous communities through which transmission right-of-ways are routed. We anticipate that this projectwill produce results that illustrate whether wolves select or avoid transmission right-of-ways in winter, afundamental season for predator-prey interactions. The project is also intended to ignite a partnership betweenManitoba Hydro and Memorial University that will lead to significant longer term projects such as an NSERCCollaborative Research and Development (CRD) Grant. This project is anticipated to impact the wayMBHydro constructs transmission right-of-ways and, where necessary, mitigate the impacts of transmissionright-of-ways. Canada and Canadians will benefit from this information because it will help companies thattransmit hydrogenerated electricity economize their transmission line routing and monitoring of right-of-wayimpacts, while balancing the purported local and ecological impacts of these large anthropogenic features onthe landscape.