Hello Province Lake Community,

Our Loon Ranger, Donna Luce, has been in contact with Caroline Hughes of the Loon Preservation Committee (LPC), and received some biological updates on the loons in the lake.  As you are aware, they came on August 13 to band any of the loons they could get.  During that banding, they were able to band 2 of the juveniles, one from the island family and one from the Hobbs Brook family.  We originally stated that those were Taylor and Hobbs.  However, we have now been informed that the juveniles that were banded are both female.  As such, that means that Taylor and Brook were tagged.  We had thought that Brook was the one that did not survive from the Hobbs Brook family, but it seems that it was Hobbs that did not survive.

That same evening, they also took blood samples from the loons.  Caroline also shared the following message in regards to the health of the loons …

“From the preliminary blood work, all of your loons seem to be in good shape!  In addition to the preliminary health checks that we have already run, your loons’ blood will be used in our malaria study.  It may also be used in our cyanobacteria study, and in collaborating organizations’ environmental contaminants study.  We will be glad to report any further results to you as we receive them, but it will likely be several months.”

That’s all for now and we will keep you posted.

Regards,

The PLA for our Loon Ranger