Grasslands National Park

Grasslands National Park
Frenchman River Valley in Grassland National Park
Coordinates: 49 ° 10 ′ 37 "  N , 107 ° 25 ′ 33"  W.
Location:	Saskatchewan , Canada
Next city:	Val Marie, killdeer
Surface:	907 km²
Founding:	1981
Visitors:	18,296 (2017/2018)
Address:	South Saskatchewan National Park Field Unit P.O. Box 150 Val Marie, Saskatchewan Canada S0N 2T0

The Grasslands National Park ( English Grasslands National Park , French Parc national des Prairies ) is, next to the Prince Albert National Park , one of only two Canadian national parks in the province of Saskatchewan . The park, founded in 1981, is located in the south of the province on the border with the US state of Montana and covers an area of ​​907 km².

history

In 1874 Sir  George Mercer Dawson discovered the first dinosaur fossils in Canada here. After the Battle of Little Bighorn , from around the end of 1876 onwards, Sitting Bull together with around 5000 Sioux members , mainly from the Lakota tribe, stayed here in the area .

In October 2009, 527 km² of the park was designated as a Dark Sky Preserve ( light protection area , Grasslands Dark Sky Preserve ). After numerous older fossil finds , fossils of a Brodavis americanus , a previously unknown species of the Hesperornithiform from the Maastrichtian , were found in the eastern park area in 2012 .

investment

The park consists of two areas, a large western block (in the Saskatchewan Census Division No. 4 ) and a smaller eastern block (in the Saskatchewan Census Division No. 3 ). The western part of the park is usually accessed from Val Marie on Saskatchewan Highway 4 , while the eastern part is from Killdeer on Saskatchewan Highway 2 .

The park is an IUCN Category II ( National Park ) protected area .

Flora and fauna

The national park is located in the Palliser triangle and the climate here is semi-arid , BSk according to the Köppen and Geiger climate classification . With the mixed grass prairie , it includes a wide prairie landscape , with the Frenchman River flowing through the western part . The flora and fauna are typical of a prairie landscape. This also includes five species of the rattlesnake . The only Canadian colony of the black-tailed prairie dog can also be found here . In 2006 the American bison , animals from Elk Island National Park , was resettled here. The group of originally 71 animals had grown to 310 adults by 2015.

literature

• Kathrin Bibelriether: Land of whispering grasses. The Grasslands National Park in Canada . In: National Park . No. 123 , 2004, pp. 36-41 .
• Parks Canada (Ed.): Grasslands National Park of Canada. Visitor Guide . 2009 ( download the pdf, 1.9 MB [accessed March 7, 2010]).

Web links

• Grassland National Park , on Parks Canada , (English, French)
• Grasslands National Park ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
• World Database on Protected Areas - Grasslands National Park (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Parks Canada Attendance 2017-18. (PDF; 187.08 KB) Parks Canada, accessed on July 27, 2019 (English). 
2. ↑ World Database on Protected Areas - Grasslands National Park Of Canada (English)
3. ^ Grasslands National Park - Bison update. Parks Canada, February 1, 2018, accessed July 27, 2019 .