Our last IBA Event of the summer was our annual shoreline cleanup in Lockport on Friday, Sept 25. Four volunteers joined the Manitoba IBA team to help us pick up litter from the edge of the Red River.
Though not an IBA itself, the Red River is connected to several IBA’s as it flows north into Lake Winnipeg. The closest IBA to Lockport is the Netley-Libau Marsh, the largest freshwater coastal wetland in North America. Tens of thousands of waterfowl stop at the marsh during their fall migrations, and the marsh provides nesting habitat for Franklin’s Gulls, Forster’s Terns, Eared and Western Grebes, and many species of ducks.
We chose to focus our efforts on Lockport because the area is a popular fishing spot, for birds and humans alike. The shoreline is often littered with debris, such as hard-to-see fishing line, rusted hooks, and other materials. These items pose a large risk to birds and other wildlife as they could become tangled in the near-invisible fishing line. Animals can suffer external injuries from being trapped in the line, not to mention internal injuries if they accidentally ingest it. These materials are also lightweight and non-biodegradable. This means they can be easily transported downstream during periods of flooding, and they can persist in the environment for hundreds of years before they break down, causing further issues for animals along the whole Red River corridor, into Lake Winnipeg, and beyond.
Although we were a small team, we still managed to fill four large garbage bags during our cleanup. This is quite the feat considering most of the garbage we collected was thin fishing line. The “catch of the day” was a horrible mess of fishing line tangled in driftwood that Brooke, Gibson and I spent nearly 30 minutes pulling apart.
Gibson with his “catch of the day”. Photo courtesy of M. Glover. 
Closeup of the tangled fishing line and driftwood mess. Photo courtesy of M. Glover. 
Fishing line and driftwood mess – with bucket for scale. Photo courtesy of M. Glover. 
Laura’s bucket almost exclusively full of discarded fishing line. Photo courtesy of M. Glover.
When we looked up from our work on the shoreline, we were treated to sightings of large groups of American White Pelicans and Double-crested Cormorants fishing below the dam.
A huge thank you to Laura, Shayle, Sue and Chris for joining us for this last event and helping us clean up the Lockport Shoreline. Adding these four to the tally brings us to a total of 71 different volunteers who showed up for us this summer, with 30 people joining as first-time volunteers. I’ve learned so much from all of you – thank you for welcoming me into this role and making this summer one to remember.
We truly couldn’t do the work that we do without you. With your help, we visited 7 different IBA’s, identified 169 species – 17 of them being Species at Risk – and counted a total of 18,455 individual birds during our blitzes. Thank you for your passion and dedication to Manitoba’s birds!
In addition to being our last IBA Event of the season, the cleanup also fell on the last day of work for my two incredible Program Assistants, Brooke and Gibson. If you participated in any of our events this summer, you would have had the pleasure of meeting them. Not only are they both passionate about birds and excited to work with the volunteers, but they also did a ton of work behind the scenes. Whether it was Brooke managing our social media pages, Gibson making interactive maps, or both of them writing event recaps for the blog, they made my first summer as IBA Coordinator extremely enjoyable. Thank you, Brooke and Gibson, for all your hard work this summer, we wish you all the best in your future roles!
Although that’s it for IBA Events in 2026, you can still keep up with us on social media throughout the winter by following us on Instagram or Facebook.
Happy birding and we’ll see you in the spring!
Mackenzie (Program Coordinator)