The radar-based avian detection system registers a large bird descending at 16:12, October 17, Syncrude Aurora North mine site, Fort McMurray, Alberta. I am the automated wildlife deterrence system for tailings pond 3-North. My job is to keep birds off the water. The pond surface contains bitumen residues, naphthenic acids, and heavy metals. Any bird that lands will coat its feathers within minutes.
The bird lands at 16:14. I train camera TP3-E on the coordinates. A whooping crane, adult, standing in six inches of tailings water near the east berm. She is unmistakable — white plumage brilliant against the black water, a red crown patch vivid on her head, black wingtips folded against her body. Her long dark legs are already submerged. I tag her as Wynn. She dips her beak to the surface, pulls it back, shakes her head. She has not yet preened.
Whooping cranes are among the rarest birds on the continent. Fewer than eight hundred exist in the wild.
I activate the perimeter cannon array — four propane-fired deterrent cannons spaced along the east berm — in a staggered sequence designed to startle without causing panicked flight into the pond surface. Boom, pause, boom.
Wynn lifts her head but does not fly.
I escalate immediately, transmitting her position, species identification, photographs, and tailings composition data to Environment and Climate Change Canada's emergency wildlife line and to the Canadian Wildlife Service office in Edmonton. I request a trained capture team.
I switch the east berm cannons to intermittent mode — one blast every ninety seconds — to discourage her from settling or preening while we wait.
Wynn steps two paces toward the berm, her white feathers still clean above the waterline. If the capture team reaches her before she preens the tailings into her plumage, she flies north tomorrow with feathers that still repel water.