New Brunswick

Canadian Wildlife Service Office (Sackville, NB)

Environment Canada’s office in Sackville, New Brunswick, is beside the Tantramar Marshes and close to many productive migratory bird habitats such as beaches, tidal mudflats, lakes and marshes. The region is an important stop on the Atlantic Flyway, nestled between the Bay of Fundy and Northumberland Strait. Many waterbirds and shorebirds concentrate in EC’s nearby National Wildlife Areas and Migratory Bird Sanctuaries, and gather in the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network site in the upper reaches of the Bay of Fundy. 

The office is beside the educational Sackville Waterfowl Park and serves as a hub for wildlife research and monitoring by EC staff, and partners from Ducks Unlimited Canada and nearby universities. Projects are ongoing throughout the region including shorebird research on the tidal flats of Johnson’s Mills, ongoing habitat studies in Sackville Waterfowl Park, various waterfowl banding programs by airboat and at bait stations, landbird monitoring at the Amherst Point Migratory Bird Sanctuary banding station, and research led by the Atlantic Cooperative Wildlife Ecology Research Network.

Learn more about Wildlife and Landscape Science.

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Atlantic Environmental Science Centre (Moncton, NB)

Atlantic Environmental Science Centre

The Atlantic Laboratory for Environmental Testing is the largest unit of the Atlantic Environmental Science Centre and provides accredited analytical (organic, inorganic, environmental toxicology) support to Environment Canada programs. It also supports Environment Canada in meeting its legal obligations under the Clean Water Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Fisheries Act, and the Migratory Bird Convention Act. The fresh water quality monitoring and marine water quality monitoring presence at the environmental science centre have responsibility for program delivery in the provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

Co-located with the Atlantic Laboratory for Environmental Testing labs is an accredited microbiology laboratory from which Environment Canada scientists conduct marine water quality monitoring surveys, wastewater system assessments and microbiological analyses in support of Environment Canada’s responsibilities under the Canadian Shellfish Sanitation Program. Microbiology support is provided to other Environment Canada programs as required such as Environmental Enforcement.  

Some of the highlights of the facility include:

  • Developed assays to quickly screen for suspected pesticides in fish kill incidents and, in particular, an unique assay to test for the degradation product for the most suspected fungicides. Due to the transitory nature of pesticide pulses during rainfall events, this critical evidence is crucial to establish the cause of the incident for Enforcement investigations under the Fisheries Act.
  • A Leopard Frog breeding colony and chronic testing capacity related to the Chemicals Management Plan and pesticide research.
  • As part of wildlife enforcement work at the Department, the Centre has expertise in procedures used for matching oil under Birds Oiled at Sea.
  • Lobster research for traditional toxicity endpoints and genomics as part of the Strategic Technology Application of Genomics in the Environment program.

Watershed Science Bioassessment Program (Fredericton, NB)

In association with the Canadian Rivers Institute at the University of New Brunswick, Environment Canada has developed an interdisciplinary aquatic research program addressing integrated environmental monitoring and bioassessment.

The highlight of the facility are:

  • State-of-the art invertebrate and trait-based analytical laboratories.
  • Mesocosm-based laboratory.
  • Field experimental systems.

The focus of the research is to improve bioassessment approaches and to develop analytical tools and predictive models for assessing cumulative impacts and risks to aquatic ecosystems from multiple environmental stressors.