the Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project
The Project began as a recovery initiative of Manitoba Conservation's Wildlife and Ecosystem Protection Branch in 1981. In 1989, the Zoological Society of Manitoba received a grant from the provincial government's Conservation Fund which provided the seed money for the recovery project. When the Delta Winnipeg Hotel (now the Radisson Hotel Skyline) expressed an interest in helping support the project, the current Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project (Manitoba) was born. In 1998, the Project ended its association with the Zoological Society when it became an independent not-for-profit conservation organization with official charitable status.
The Project's recovery activities began in 1981 with the release in Winnipeg of four captive-bred peregrine falcons from the Canadian Wildlife Service's breeding facility in Wainwright, Alberta.
In 1989, a pair of peregrines successfully fledged four young from a nestbox on the Delta Winnipeg Hotel (now the Radisson Hotel Skyline) in downtown Winnipeg. This was the first documented wild nesting in Manitoba for more than fifty years. The male of this pair had been released in Winnipeg in 1986, the female was hatched from a wild nest in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1987. Over the next two decades, a series of other wild nestsites also successfully raised chicks of their own.
From 1981 to 2012 more than 200 peregrine chicks have fledged from various locations in Winnipeg, Brandon, Portage la Prairie and Gimli by the Project in cooperation with the Wildlife and Ecosystem Branch of Manitoba Conservation. These birds, and their offspring, have successfully held breeding territories in Alberta (Edmonton & Calgary), Saskatchewan (Regina, Saskatoon & Moose Jaw), Manitoba (Brandon, Winnipeg & Selkirk), Kansas (Topeka), Minnesota (Red Wing), North Dakota (Grand Forks & Fargo) and Nebraska (Lincoln & Omaha).
The goal of the Project is to re-establish a self-sustaining wild population of Peregrine Falcons in Manitoba as part of the national Peregrine recovery effort. With the increasing number of "at-risk" species and because most of our activities are on-going, we are usually not eligible for grants. The Project is volunteer-driven, relying almost entirely on public donations to support its recovery efforts.