REGINA - The hard work that goes on behind the scenes was showcased this week at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum.
On Tuesday, the new Parks Culture and Sport Minister Alana Ross was at the museum to hear from scientists about their important research work that goes on across the province -- efforts that are highlighted in the displays to visitors at the Museum.
Here is a look at some of those efforts that have been under way recently:
Paleontology
The work done to unearth fossils in the province was highlighted. Scientists showed off the recent finds discovered in Grasslands National Park. Dr. Ryan McKellar noted they had unearthed the bones coming from duck-billed dinosaurs as well as massive soft-shell turtles.
“It’s a really neat example of what went on right before the extinction of the dinosaurs,” McKellar said. He said this gives them a chance to see what happened in that key time interval just before the extinction event.
The backbone and spine of a duck-billed dinosaur were shown. McKellar said these are surprisingly rare in the province — they are more common finds in Alberta.
“This is our one chance to look at a more complete animal,” he said.
Wildlife research
Dr. Cory Sheffield showed off some of the research on wildlife and how those animals are doing. One research project under way is on grey-horned owls, which can be found throughout the province.
“Grey-horned owls are one of the species that we have here in Saskatchewan that have done extremely, extremely well because of things that people have done to the landscape,” he said.
The owls had been limited before to the treed valley areas, but Sheffield said they have taken full advantage of trees and buildings erected by humans on the landscape, including power poles where they can hunt for food below.
“I call them the Great White Sharks of the prairie,” said Sheffield, because “they eat everything.”
The other Museum project is on the kangaroo rat, which is found in only two parts of Canada: southeastern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan. There are only less than a thousand of them there.
“They actually need open sands to live so the great Sandhills area — they love that. They really really like sandhills that have been kept open by cattle grazing, by fire. That’s where these critters are, and our research is focused on understanding what makes these areas good for a kangaroo rat because they are an endangered species.”
Entomology findings
There is also extensive research into the world of insects. Dr. Ryan Fisher showed off some of the findings in connection to bees, wasps and other interesting bugs in Saskatchewan.
“Every year when we go out, we find things that are new records for the province, sometimes new records for Canada, sometimes undescribed species, but also, we are able to document species that we otherwise have not seen for a long time," said Fisher.
Among the insects shown are the Virginia creeper tree hopper, a type of cuckoo wasp for which there had been no records of before in Saskatchewan, and the anthophora peritomae which is found around gumseed flowers and was found around the community of Eastend.
What makes this particular bee interesting, said Fisher, is the females have teeth that can “dig nests into the sandstone cliffs,” and they can be found in badlands areas.
Minister Ross was impressed with all the work being done at RSM and encouraged people to come out and see it.
“We have over 130,000 guests come annually to tour the museum and I wonder sometimes how many are aware of all of this amazing work that goes on in the background, and the degree of expertise that we have here.”
