The Gros-Mécatina Migratory Bird Sanctuary () is a protected area in

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada. It consists of four islands and a reef in the

Gulf of Saint Lawrence The Gulf of St. Lawrence is a gulf that fringes the shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, plus the islands Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, possessions of France, in ...

that are used as nesting sites by seabirds.

Location

The Gros Mécatina Bird Sanctuary is in the

offshore from the Cap du Gros Mecatina, the communities of Mutton Bay and La Tabatière, and the Baie des Ha! Ha!. The protected area includes four islands and a reef – the Île Plate, Île aux Trois Collines, the two Îles aux Marmettes and the Rochers aux Marmettes. The coastal waters within of the islands and reef are also protected, covering an area of in total. Part of the terrain is bare rock, and part is covered in flora such as

cranberry Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. Cranberries are low, creeping shrubs or vines up to long and in height; they have slender stems that are not th ...

(''Vaccinium oxycoccos''),

cloudberry ''Rubus chamaemorus'' is a species of flowering plant in the rose family. Its English common names include cloudberry, Nordic berry, bakeapple (in Newfoundland and Labrador), knotberry and knoutberry (in England), aqpik or low-bush salmonberry ...

(''Rubus chamaemorus''), mosses and lichens. The tidal zones of the

Gros Mécatina River The Gros Mécatina River () is a salmon river in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It empties into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Location The Gros Mécatina River is about long, and originates in Lac Boucher east of the Little Mecatina Riv ...

and the Véco River are outside the jurisdiction of the Municipality of Gros-Mécatina and are managed by the bird sanctuary.

Administration

The sanctuary was designated a Migratory Bird Sanctuary with IUCN Management Category "Ia" in 1996. The purpose is to protect the nesting sites of seabirds. It is fully protected and access is forbidden. It is owned by the Federal Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife and is subject to the

Migratory Birds Convention Act The Migratory Birds Convention Act (also MBCA) is a Canadian law established in 1917 and significantly updated in June 1994 which contains regulations to protect migratory birds, their eggs, and their nests from destruction by hunting, trafficking ...

, the Canada Wildlife Act and the Regulations on migratory bird sanctuaries.

Birds

At one time the site was used for nesting by thousands of

common murre The common murre or common guillemot (''Uria aalge'') is a large auk. It has a Subarctic, circumpolar distribution, occurring in low-Arctic and boreal waters in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. It spends most of its time at sea, only coming ...

(''Uria aalge''), but due to egg collecting and illegal hunting by 2010 there were only 12 of these birds in the sanctuary. Terns are sometimes the most common birds in the sanctuary, with 1,800 counted in 2005. Other birds that form colonies on the islands include

Atlantic puffin The Atlantic puffin ('), also known as the common puffin, is a species of seabird in the auk family (biology), family. It is the only puffin native to the Atlantic Ocean; two related species, the tufted puffin and the horned puffin being found ...

(''Fratercula arctica''),

black guillemot The black guillemot or tystie (''Cepphus grylle'') is a medium-sized seabird of the Alcidae family, native throughout northern Atlantic coasts and eastern North American coasts. It is resident in much of its range, but large populations from the ...

(''Cepphus grylle''),

razorbill The razorbill (''Alca torda'') is a North Atlantic colonial seabird and the only extant member of the genus ''Alca (bird), Alca'' of the family Alcidae, the auks. It is the closest living relative of the extinct great auk (''Pinguinus impennis' ...

(''Alca torda''),

American herring gull The American herring gull or Smithsonian gull (''Larus smithsonianus'' or ''Larus argentatus smithsonianus'') is a large gull that breeds in North America, where it is treated by the American Ornithological Society as a subspecies of herring gu ...

(''Larus smithsonianus''),

great black-backed gull The great black-backed gull (''Larus marinus'') is the largest member of the gull family. It is a very aggressive hunter, pirate, and scavenger which breeds on the coasts and islands of the North Atlantic in northern Europe and northeastern Nort ...

(''Larus marinus''), black-legged kittiwake (''Rissa tridactyla''),

great cormorant The great cormorant (''Phalacrocorax carbo''), also known as just cormorant in Britain, as black shag or kawau in New Zealand, formerly also known as the great black cormorant across the Northern Hemisphere, the black cormorant in Australia, and ...

(''Phalacrocorax carbo'') and

double-crested cormorant The double-crested cormorant (''Nannopterum auritum'') is a member of the cormorant family of water birds. It is found near rivers and lakes and in coastal areas and is widely distributed across North America, from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska ...

(''Phalacrocorax auritus'').

Notes

Sources

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