HELS: High Elevation Localized Species
HELS is a citizen science project that operates through the commitment and awareness of individuals in the Bow Valley. Just by reporting sightings of certain species while you are in the Bow Valley, you help us better understand and protect these species in the future. Normally, to report a HELS sighting you can go into our HELS Portal and log in or sign up if you are reporting for the first time. However, the HELS portal is temporarily unavailable due to our website being under construction. Please check back to see if the HELS portal is running again, or subscribe to our updates to receive email updates.
Introduction.
HELS stands for High Elevation Localized Species, which is a term coined by Dr. Tony Clevenger in 2009. It refers to the species of animals and plants which exist primarily—sometimes exclusively—in the tree-line of the upper sub-alpine eco-region. Very little is known about the distribution of these species in the Rockies and as a result, there have been no specific efforts to mitigate the effects of human activity and infrastructure on them. This is why in 2010, we created the HELS citizen science project to encourage everyone to report sightings of any of the four identified HELS species in the Rocky Mountains.
Identified HELS.
Why it matters.
Each of the four HELS requires the cooler conditions of the higher elevations to survive. It is anticipated that climate change will challenge the ability of each of these species to maintain persistent healthy populations in their current habitats. By reporting sightings of HELS, you are helping us find out more and more about the corridors required for connectivity between habitat patches, their population trends and the possibility of extinction.
Every year the data submitted is cleaned and summarized and the results are made available through the HELS Archive (which is temporarily unavailable). Several researchers have been using the information collected through this citizen science project to mitigate human impacts for these species. Here is an article about Pikas which used some data collected from this program.
Please share the HELS project with friends who are visiting the high country. All HELS observations are greatly appreciated, so thank you in advance for your contribution.
