National Wildlife Research Centre

The National Wildlife Research Centre is the focal point for ECCC's knowledge and expertise for impacts of toxic substances on wild plants and animals, international migratory bird research and population surveys, and the health of wild species as indicative of environmental quality. The Centre also conducts landscape ecology research focused on studying natural and human-induced impacts on wildlife communities and ecosystems over time and space.

Highlights of this Centre include:

• National Wildlife Specimen Bank, which represents a unique collection, dating from the late 1960s, of over 120,000 wildlife specimens from around Canada. These are used for retrospective temporal and spatial analyses of contaminants and their effects, including ecosystem (community) changes. This Bank is critical to Canada’s wildlife conservation and ecosystem management.
• Greenhouse and growth chamber facilities for state-of-the-art chemical testing and plant testing guidelines development.
• Accredited service and research laboratories for nanotoxicology, environmental chemistry and toxicology research, and State of the Environment monitoring - for the development of toxicogenomics markers and methods to allow rapid pertinent toxicity assessment.
• National seabird, shorebird, and songbird research and monitoring operations.
• A geomatics lab that specializes in the application of earth observation data combined with geospatial analysis to assess ecosystem services and wildlife habitat. 
• Integrated population and habitat modelling approaches to identify critical habitat for species at risk.